


Hurtfew Abbey or 'Should a Magician Marry?'

by Nothingshire



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (TV), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: AU, Kink Meme, Multi, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-05-18 19:56:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 52,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5941174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nothingshire/pseuds/Nothingshire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This story is a fill for a prompt which asked for Childermass and Norrell in a 'Pride & Prejudice' style AU where gentlemen could marry each other - "And tell me you can't imagine the various proposal scenes with them."</p>
<p>So - we are in a Regency AU where not only is magic an integral part of English history but where a gentleman may marry another gentleman (or a lady another lady) provided of course that that other gentleman (or lady) is of the proper rank and breeding.</p>
<p>Against this background, The York Society of Magicians turns its attentions to an interesting but delicate question; should not Mr Gilbert Norrell be encouraged to marry some suitable young gentleman to be his companion, pupil and ultimately heir to his magical library? It would never do for his books to fall into the hands of those unsympathetic to magic after all, or for Mr Norrell himself to be swept off his feet by some fortune hunting cad up from London for the York Season. And the ideal candidate does seem to have presented himself to the Society....</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Mr Edward Honeyfoot, theoretical magician, of High-Petergate in the city of York, never sat down to breakfast with his wife and three daughters but that he immediately took up the paper and turned to the Notices of Funerals.  
  
“And are you quite happy that your own name is not there this morning, my dear?” said Mrs Honeyfoot, as she poured his tea from the pot.  
  
“I am,” said her husband, “but I see that Mr Pietree is to be buried on Thursday. I shall go to the Minster; there will be no heir or child to mourn him, alas and few friends either.”  
  
“No heir? Then what will become of his great house on Low-Petergate and all its books of magic?”  
  
“The house? I do not know. As for the books, they will be sold to Mr Thoroughgood in Coffee-yard. Then they will disappear into Hurtfew Abbey and never be seen again except by Mr Norrell,” said Mr Honeyfoot. “The Society of York Magicians might have tried to purchase a few were they offered at public auction but Norrell will have them packed up by the time that the coffin is buried. I confess that I sometimes wonder what will become of his great library when Mr Norrell leaves us. He has no heir that I am aware of.”  
  
Mrs Honeyfoot put down the teapot. “Gilbert Norrell’s mother was a Haythornthwaite – her name was Mary I recall; it was from his mother’s brother that he inherited Hurtfew. There was another sister, Anne; she is Mrs Clatterbuck now, a widow with two sons. I suppose that they will inherit for want of any other claimant.”  
  
“And Mrs Clatterbuck – is she likely to be a friend of English Magic and offer Norrell’s library to the Society?”  
  
“Why, no,” said his wife. “My Aunt Bardsley lived next to the Norrell house when I was a girl. Gilbert Norrell had already gone to live with his uncle then although he was still a boy and his mother was a widow. Then a little time later, Mary Norrell died. On the day of the funeral, my aunt heard a great banging and crashing and ran out to peer over the garden wall.  
  
There was Anne Clatterbuck walking up and down the path with her bonnet askew having every stick of furniture taken out of the house by her servants and telling those in the house that they belonged to her by right. “Her sickly child has been given everything at Hurtfew so my sons shall have everything here,” she said. “And when Gilbert Norrell dies, which will be soon, I hope, I shall make a bonfire and burn all those old books that my brother loves more than his proper heirs!”  
  
“That is most alarming,” said Mr Honeyfoot. “And so Mr Norrell had nothing from his parents’ house?”  
  
“He had one item; an old longcase clock. My aunt had her gardener take it when no one was watching. When Gilbert Norrell came to the house a few days after the funeral she gave it to him wrapped in an old petticoat as a memento of his mother. He wept a moment and thanked her most sincerely she said and the clock is still at Hurtfew for all that I know.”  
  
“Great Aunt Bardsley made Gilbert Norrell weep, mama?” said Miss Honeyfoot. “Perhaps, papa, there was a practical magician in York after all.”  
  
“You are young and full of feeling, my dear; it is difficult for you to realise that your elders were too, once upon a time. But Gilbert Norrell had heart enough to love his mother, I believe, and I like him a little for it,” said Mrs Honeyfoot.  
  
“Then it occurs to me that someone should be sent in search of that heart,” said Mr Honeyfoot. “Mr Norrell should be encouraged to marry; some younger gentleman who might serve as his companion and pupil in the study of theoretical magic, and later, when the sad day comes, his heir. Otherwise, when he dies, we shall see all his books destroyed or sold to the Duke of Roxburghe and I am not sure which would be worse.”  
  
“Well papa,” said Miss Honeyfoot, whose name was Isabella, “as the only one of your daughters who is engaged to be married –stop sighing at me, Jane, I have not mentioned the fact since we woke and that is at least two hours– I would be happy to help you find Mr Norrell a husband. But I shall be very busy with the wedding and the honeymoon first and then helping mama to find matches for my sisters and you can see for yourself what a task that will be, what with Jane so unaccomplished and Eliza always buried in a book.”  
  
Miss Jane Honeyfoot retorted that anyone who could sing in tune to her older sister’s pianoforte playing - and in Italian too – had enough accomplishments to marry Sir Arthur Wellesley. “But in any case, papa” she added, “one should marry for love and no one could love Mr Norrell.”  
  
Miss Eliza, the youngest daughter of all, put down her book at this and whispered that she could find it in her heart to love a man who lived in a library on a great windswept moor but her sisters from long years of practice ignored her and she returned to her reading.  
  
“Your offers and opinions are all very welcome my dears but they are unnecessary,” said Mr Honeyfoot. “I need not search for the candidate; he has already presented himself to me. I mean of course, Mr John Segundus.”  
  
“But sir,” said Miss Jane at last to the silence that followed, “We thought that you liked Mr Segundus.”  
  
“Indeed I do,” said Mr Honeyfoot. “I should have been very happy to see him married to either you or Eliza, were his nature so inclined. But we know that it is not from his own mouth. He is still my friend, if he cannot be my son in law; why should I not want to see him happy and settled in a sensible union with a gentleman of good fortune who shares so many of his interests? A marriage is more than a romance, my dears.”  
  
“You and mama were very happy to see me engaged to Miss Caroline Norton,” said Isabella. “And I assure you that there is nothing sensible about our union at all. We are marrying for nothing but love: why, we would live in a ditch so long as we were together and we mean to die in each other’s arms upon a single midnight when we are old.”  
  
“I am very glad that Miss Caroline is your true love Isabella but I confess that I am just as pleased that Sir Robert Norton her father is one of the richest man in York and can give her such a fine dowry to support you both, in a ditch or out of it,” said Mr Honeyfoot with a smile.  
  
“Poor Mr Segundus is all that I can say,” said Jane. “If you want to marry off Mr Norrell then wed him to Doctor Foxcastle; they are both disagreeable and ugly and they can share each other’s wigs.”  
  
“Well, Mr Segundus comes to dinner this evening,” said Mrs Honeyfoot. “We can simply ask him how the notion of marrying takes him. If it is disagreeable then there the matter ends. If it is agreeable then your father may discuss it at the next Society meeting. I dare say that they will all have opinions on the matter. For myself I rejoice that your father has hit on a plan that may see our John happy and secure.”  
  
With that she clasped her husband’s hand and drew him up from the breakfast table to dance a little about the room in anticipation of some good news for their mutual friend; Mr Honeyfoot put down his paper and followed her most willingly. From this it may be seen that it was not the Misses Honeyfoot’s fault that they believed so strongly in marrying for Love alone. They saw the most perfect example of such an alliance in front of them every day.

Mr Segundus came to dinner at High-Petergate that evening as was his custom two or three times a week. Mr and Mrs Honeyfoot would have been glad to see him there for dinner every day but as Mr Segundus explained to them with the gentlest of smiles, he was happy to accept their friendship but not their charity.

John Segundus was a gentleman of around thirty five, much loved by his friends for his good nature, kindness and modesty. He had come to York from the South some six months earlier to join the Learned Society of York Magicians and to attend their meetings. There, an immediate sympathy had sprung up between himself and Mr Honeyfoot. Both of them were greatly interested in the question of why there were only theoretical magicians left in England, while to Dr Foxcastle, its president and many others of the Society, this was not a question at all. As far as they were concerned, theoretical magicians were the only kind that was wanted.

Mr Segundus had no other profession but his devotion to the study of magic and in particular the conundrum of why it had disappeared from England some three hundred years before. In this quest he shewed great determination and courage. His friends only wished that he would sometimes be a little selfish and display those qualities in pursuing his own interests.

Dinner having been finished, Mrs Honeyfoot took Mr Segundus’s coat to mend its cuffs. Miss Isabella was visiting her intended, Miss Caroline; Jane and Eliza settled down with an embroidery hoop and a book respectively on strict instructions that they were not to interrupt; and Mr Honeyfoot and Mr Segundus sat one on either side of the fire to talk.

“Tell me Mr Segundus, how goes your plan to open an academy of magic?” said Mr Honeyfoot.

“Not well sir,” said Mr Segundus. “I fear that my small savings will not be enough to finance the matter. Alas, I have no profession to turn to that might increase my funds.”

“Of course,” said Mrs Honeyfoot, “one way of improving your situation would be to marry; you did tell me once that you might marry, did you not Mr Segundus? And a gentleman and not a lady?”

Yes, said Mr Segundus, blushing, a gentleman. He turned and begged Miss Jane and Miss Eliza not to think that any reflection on their charms. The young ladies quickly assured him that they thought no such thing; they only hoped to join the dancing at Mr Segundus’s wedding to some agreeable suitor.

“But I would need funds in order to marry,” said Mr Segundus. “They say that two may live as cheaply as one but I cannot even live as cheaply as one must it seems. And how can I ask another to join me in Mrs Pleasance’s attic in Lady- Peckitt’s yard? No, English Magic is my spouse and I must serve her as well as I can as a single gentleman, although at present I cannot see how.”

“But perhaps your friends can aid you there,” said Mr Honeyfoot. “Suppose I were to tell you that not twenty miles from York there lives a gentleman very like yourself; quiet, scholarly and devoted to magic and its study. This gentleman, unlike you, also has a fine house and a good fortune and best of all a great library of books of magic which he has been collecting and reading for many years. What he lacks however is a companion; some other person with whom he can discuss magical history and all the fascinating mysteries that arise from it. Think how lonely he must be and how he must worry about what will happen to his studies and his library once he dies. And here you are, the very picture of the young scholar who could serve as his husband, pupil and heir.”

“I will say that a marriage of minds and interests has always appealed to me sir,” said Mr Segundus hesitantly. “May I ask this gentleman’s name?”

“Certainly; it is Mr Gilbert Norrell of Hurtfew Abbey.”

“Ah,” said Mr Segundus. “I have never met him but I have heard his name many times in conversation at the Society. Did he not write a rather disagreeable letter to Dr Foxcastle two or three months ago?”

“There have been several letters over the years; we have asked Mr Norrell either to join the Society or to let us visit his library more than once, but he has been disinclined to agree. Then again, Dr Foxcastle is the best of men but perhaps not the most eloquent of writers. And I am sure that your good nature and judgement will not allow you to condemn a man you have not met yourself on the grounds of rumour and gossip,” said Mr Honeyfoot.

“Indeed; but perhaps Mr Norrell would not consider me to be of sufficient rank. I have no influential family connections - no relatives alive at all as you know.”

“All the better! There will be no danger of a great pack of your aunts and cousins descending on his house and disturbing his studies once you are married.”

“But also – am I of a personal appearance likely to appeal to Mr Norrell?

Here Miss Jane and Miss Eliza put down the embroidery hoop and the book and broke out into a chorus of objection. How could Mr Segundus slander himself so? He had dark hair and eyes, which were the only proper colouring for a man; no one could consider a light-haired gentleman handsome much less a redheaded one. The grey that nested in his hair was but a dove’s wing of beauty. He was exactly the right height for a person of Mr Norrell’s stature to walk arm in arm with. The only objection to his appearance that Mr Norrell could possibly have would be that the sight of Mr Segundus’s noble profile seated opposite him when reading a book would be too distracting for him to continue with his own studies.

“But that could easily be remedied,” said Eliza.” You can sit in the library at Hurtfew and read to him Mr Segundus – by candlelight. He can gaze at you and learn at the same time.”

“That is not a bad notion, Eliza,” said her sister in surprise. “I suppose that you got it out of a novel.”

Mr Segundus at last allowed himself to be persuaded that there would be no harm in allowing a simple encounter to be arranged between himself and Mr Norrell; and that this would be potentially a great service to the interests of English magic; and to his own interests as well, which he should not neglect for once in the name of modesty. The matter could be discussed at the Society’s meeting in two day’s time since it was likely that some of its funds would be needed to carry the scheme off properly. 

“We will see what the other members have to say,” said Mr Honeyfoot as he shewed Mr Segundus to the door with his mended coat. “I should like to have Childermass’s opinion in particular; he has as much good common sense as others have education and makes better use of it.”

“Oh yes, papa,” said Jane, handing Mr Segundus his hat, “be sure to tell us what John Childermass thinks of the proposition. That will amuse us all.”


	2. Chapter 2

The Learned Society of York Magicians met on the third Wednesday of every month at eight o’clock in the upper room of the Old Starre Inn. So it was that two nights later Mr Segundus called on Mr Honeyfoot and the two of them walked down Stonegate together to attend.

They passed Coffee-yard on the way; Mr Thoroughgood’s shop was closed but there were lights behind the shutters and a great many wooden chests were being loaded into a covered cart outside.

“You may have the pleasure of arranging those books on the shelves at Hurtfew in a little while,” said Mr Honeyfoot encouragingly to Mr Segundus.

“That is a great way in the future, if at all,” replied the other, “although I thank you for the sentiment. But let us remember that you have not yet persuaded the society of the propriety of your plan and not everyone there will wish to support a scheme that advances my good fortune as well as magic’s.”

The Reader may ask: what manner of man would begrudge English Magic some advancement because it would bring Mr Segundus a little benefit too? His name was Dr Foxcastle and he had been for some years the president of the York Society. When Mr Segundus had first come to the city he had been eager to speak to his fellow magicians and to rouse them in the search for an answer to the question of why magic had disappeared from England.

Alas, Dr Foxcastle was not interested in this hunt and he took Mr Segundus’s questions as insults to his own stewardship of the society. Mr Segundus had of course explained that he had meant no such thing but Dr Foxcastle seemed yet more annoyed by his apology. It said a great deal for Mr Segundus’s courage that he continued to attend the society meetings in the face of such hostility.

When the magicians entered the upper room they found Dr Foxcastle already seated behind a chicken pie and a flagon of ale and consuming both while pronouncing on the deficiencies of the late Mr Pietree to an audience of two.

“I attended him the day before his death; ‘Pietree,’ I said, ‘you must see that all hope is lost. The undertaker is outside with the string to measure you for your coffin. You have neither chick nor child to leave anything to; let the society have your books and at least someone may remember your name for a little while.’ Of course the man could not speak by then but he could easily have nodded his head. But all he did was lie there and stare at me. Selfishness is the ruler of the Age.”

The first of Dr Foxcastle’s listeners was an old grey-haired gentleman called Hart. He merely nodded and muttered, which was all the response that Dr Foxcastle required.

The second was a man of about twenty five, flung back in his chair at an angle with a great fall of wild black hair lying over his face through which could be seen one bright eye.

“And that did not make the man leap up from his deathbed and do your bidding?” he said. “I am surprised that he lasted another day; I should have died on the spot to spite you.” This observation Dr Foxcastle was pleased to ignore.

This was John Childermass, except for Mr Segundus the newest member of the York Society. One Wednesday evening about two years previous the magicians had arrived at the Old Starre Inn to discover this gentleman already standing in the corner of the room; he was in contemplation of both shelves of the society’s library of magical books with his head at an angle. They had naturally assumed from his manner of dress, which was patched and ragged, that he was a new tapster from the inn downstairs and told him to bring up ale and cheese. Childermass had thanked them for the suggestion; then the meeting had begun and the refreshments had been forgotten in some dispute over the Doncaster Squares.

At the end of the evening the same magicians were surprised to find John Childermass still standing in the corner feasting on the ale and cheese and even more surprised to meet the landlord of the Old Starre Inn at the foot of the stairs asking payment for the vittles that they had, it seemed, purchased for their new acquaintance. The landlord was a persuasive man, as all landlords must be when it comes to bills, so they gave him his shillings and then looked for some compensation and explanation from Childermass. That person however (for it seemed that he could not be a gentleman or even a servant) had disappeared into the night.

The members took the story home to their families, certain that they would never see their interloper again. They were therefore astonished, when they arrived on the next month’s third Wednesday, to find him already seated at the meeting table with his feet upon it and a pipe in his hand. They thought at first to drive him from the room by affecting not to see him, a snub which would have mortified any respectable man. Childermass, however, remained unmortified and even ventured some comments on a paper of Mr Tunstall concerning the Raven King, which were very free and verging on the critical.

Some of the members withdrew to a corner to see what could be done; and word was sent down to the landlord that the society needed a dangerous villain removed. But the servants who came up the stairs only laughed and greeted Childermass by name with a slap on the shoulder. “He will do you no harm, sirs,” they said as they departed. Since the members themselves could not very well take him by the scruff of the neck and throw him out – for he was a good twenty years younger than any of them and taller too - he was suffered to remain for the evening.

Childermass himself went away with a smile and a bow and a promise to return on the next month with a contribution of his own to their discussions.

This would never do; the society members determined to be cunning and met on the third Tuesday of the next month at seven o’clock to discuss what was to be done to remove this new arrival (Mr Honeyfoot’s suggestion that he simply be allowed to join and state his opinions - which had some sense and liveliness - being rejected out of hand). They had debated and argued for half an hour before a chuckle and the smell of pipe tobacco alerted them to the sight of Childermass propped in the doorway from where he had been contemplating them for some time.

“Take yourself off, sir, you are not wanted here,” said Dr Foxcastle. “You are not a gentleman; what are your qualifications to remain?”

“My qualifications, as you call them,” said Childermass, walking to the centre of the room and taking off his gloves, “are that I am a North Englishman who loves magic and looks to see it governing here again; have this as my dues of membership.”

So saying, he took a large square parcel from underneath his ragged coat and placed it on the table before the members. Dr Foxcastle unwrapped it and found within a perfect copy of “Revelations of Thirty- Six Other Worlds” by Paris Ormskirk, complete with all illustrations.

“I present this to the society’s library as my introduction,” said Childermass. “You do not have a copy; no other man in England does. I could have sold it but I give it to you as a sign of my good intent.” He sat down and folded his arms.

The members crowded round in wonder to look at the volume and exclaim over it. Later, one or two considered whether they should ask Childermass how he had acquired it but they were quickly silenced by those who wanted to know if he had more books of magic to give them.

From that day on, Childermass was an accepted member of the society, although he did little at their meetings but argue and scoff and smoke his pipe. He brought the society books and manuscripts which increased their library from five volumes to fifteen. These later offerings had to be paid for out of funds but as Childermass argued, he could just as easily have sold them to Mr Norrell at Hurtfew or even the Duke of Roxburghe. He did not overcharge for the items and presumably lived off these earning alone. What he did when he was not at the Old Starre Inn nobody knew. He was never seen about York, although every waiter and tapster in the city seemed to recognise his name.

In short, he appeared to be of the servant classes but had no master, had money but dressed like beggar and had intelligence but no education. The society members were content to endure him, his pipe and his observations for the sake of the new books and the pleasure of seeing Dr Foxcastle annoyed. Childermass in turn was prepared to listen to a great many dull discussions of rain magic and cloud spells until whatever it was he was truly waiting for arrived; he paid a little friendly attention to Mr Segundus and his ideas in the meantime. Mr Honeyfoot, as he told his daughters, was often taken by a certain shrewdness in his opinions on magic and other matters which shewed rather more experience with the world than his age suggested he should have.

Old Mr Greyshippe, a venerable society member of eighty or so was once being driven along the lonely road between Whinmoor and Sicklinghall late on an October evening when he was awoken from his doze by the carriage suddenly coming to a halt. When he looked out of the window there was a man on a raw young black horse standing just by the side of the road with his face under a kerchief. The man uncovered his face when Mr Greyshippe looked out and the latter saw that it was Childermass.

Mr Greyshippe thought to ask him what he did out there so late and lonely but Childermass only smiled and wished him a good evening before urging the horse into a gallop and riding on. The carriage moved off again, Mr Greyshippe’s coachman apologising for the jolt; he had thought for a moment that he saw a pistol in the rider’s hand.

 

The other members soon arrived in the upper room and took their usual places.

“You have some urgent business Mr Honeyfoot?” said Dr Foxcastle.

Yes, said Mr Honeyfoot, it concerned Mr Norrell of Hurtfew.

“Gilbert Norrell!” said Dr Foxcastle. “Do you recall the answer he made when I wrote and asked him to give us admittance to his library? ‘Mr Norrell’s compliments but Hurtfew is not open to sightseers and tourists’. A more disagreeable, unpleasant, ungenerous....” 

Perhaps he could begin said Mr Honeyfoot, glancing at Mr Segundus, and he rose to his feet.

He started by reminding the society of the sad death of Mr Pietree - not a member, alas! - and the fate of his books. He then turned to his fears for the Hurtfew library and described the plan discussed at his home two evenings before; meanwhile Mr Segundus, seated beside him, blushed pinker and pinker and lowered himself as far as he could into his chair. Mr Honeyfoot concluded by recommending the scheme to the society and requesting their advice and opinions.

There was silence and then John Childermass broke out laughing.

“I should have liked your observations, Childermass,” said Mr Honeyfoot. “What particular objections do you have to the idea?”

“That you are trying to match Christians as if you were breeding foxhounds, Mr Honeyfoot. Gilbert Norrell is a grown man of what - fifty? – and with all the money and land he could need. If he wanted to be married then he would be. Do you even know that he wants a husband and not a wife?”

Mr Thorpe, a quiet, sensible member, said that it was well known that Mr Norrell never talked to ladies or sought their company – not that the ladies ever complained - and had rejected several very suitable matches with the daughters of his neighbours in his youth.

“And you cannot say that Mr Norrell is not married from choice just because he has money,” said Mr Honeyfoot. “Money does not smooth the path to every heart.”

“It seems to, to those of us who do not have it,” said Childermass.

“I hope you do not think that money is my only interest in Mr Norrell,” said Mr Segundus.

“No, I have a better opinion of you than that, Mr Segundus,” said Childermass. “I should like to lower my view of mankind in general but you keep raising it up; I resent you for it sometimes. I also think that you do not need your friends to find you a husband; you are not a lass of sixteen, however much you may blush.”

“So what is your plan to preserve the Hurtfew books Childermass?” said Mr Thorpe.

“My plan,” said Childermass “is that we let the books go where they will. Magic does not need books. Have books turned Norrell into any sort of a magician?”

“But we are all magicians and you have been happy to bring us books,” said Mr Segundus.

“You are all Theoretical Magicians – gentlemen magicians like Norrell. I mean Practical Magicians – the magicians of old. Pale and Stokesey did not need books. The Raven King never wrote a book. I no longer read any book that I bring you, except to check its pages and set my price.”

Mr Segundus would have liked to continue this discussion but Dr Foxcastle was anxious to speak.

“Enough of that talk of old magic; but I do have a mind to see Norrell’s library for myself,” he said. “He has been buying books and hoarding them for twenty years or more and for all we know he could be using them to bake piecrusts or paper the walls. No, if Mr Segundus can make himself useful for once and soften him up a little, then all to the good.” The president of the York Society might not wish to help John Segundus but he wished not to agree with John Childermass even more.

The other members nodded and murmured, newly conscious of the outrage that being refused sight of the library at Hurtfew had caused them, although they had borne it very well until that evening. Neither Anne Clatterbuck nor the Duke of Roxburghe should rob them of the volumes on Mr Norrell’s death.

Mr Segundus set his jaw and said that he hoped Dr Foxcastle realised that there could be no question of his giving Mr Norrell the impression that he felt any interest in him that was not entirely sincere.

Of course, replied Dr Foxcastle, somewhat disconcerted by this rebuke. But how were they to affect the introduction, since Norrell would not attend the society and they had no mutual friends?

Mr Thorpe reminded the meeting that the Lord Mayor’s ball would be held at the York Assembly Rooms in three weeks time. The new mayor was Mr Thomas Wilson the bookseller – Norrell, as his best customer would attend and it was sure to be the only invitation to a dance that he would accept that season. Mr Segundus might meet him there.

“A dance?” said Dr Foxcastle. “Can you cut a caper, Segundus? Stand up man and let us see you hop.”

Mr Segundus half rose to his feet but Mr Honeyfoot pulled him down.

“Norrell never dances; he will stay ten minutes in the ballroom and then go up to the reading room on the second floor,” he said. “Mr Segundus may follow him and introduce himself as a fellow scholar in search of peace and quiet; and then they can naturally fall into conversation on books. Perhaps, John, you should take the manuscript of your book on Dr Pale’s faerie servants and ask him his opinion of it.”

The society now fell to discussing more practical matters. It was agreed that Mr Segundus should be bought a new suit at the society’s expense; that he should not wear a wig, to Dr Foxcastle’s disappointment, (Mr Honeyfoot winning the vote by mentioning his daughters’ observations about the dove’s wing) and that ten members of the society should be bought tickets to the Assembly Ball.

Those ten members would be the most senior present, and Mr Segundus, said Dr Foxcastle with a glance at Childermass. He hoped that no one thus excluded would mind. Childermass smiled and said that he was not at all offended; he would be more than able to acquire a ticket and attend the dance in his own right. Furthermore, he would like to contribute half a guinea to the society’s fund to buy Mr Segundus a suit.

“That is most generous of you, sir,” said Mr Segundus.

Not at all, said Childermass. He had thought to take the money to York Races on Saturday. “However, gentlemen, I think that I will get more entertainment out of this scheme of yours and so there it is.” He placed the coin on the table and departed with a promise to see them all in three weeks time.


	3. Chapter 3

About thirty years or so previous to this story, Mr John Haythornthwaite was driving through the countryside some fourteen miles north west of York. He had lately returned to his native county after twenty years service in the Indies, and having earned a considerable fortune; now he looked to purchase a country residence with it.

His attention was taken all at once by the sight of a great unkindness of ravens swooping and flying over a small hill. He directed his coachman to follow them and found a small valley. At the bottom was a house in the style of Queen Anne but with signs of an older dwelling around it, surrounded by a thick stone wall of a much earlier date. Mr Haythornthwaite was greeted by a steward, the only occupant of the place, whose name was Otherlander and discovered that the house and its estate were for sale at a very reasonable price; the previous family having all died or gone away, it seemed. The ravens, meanwhile, flew away over the hill.

The house itself was sound and well laid out and Mr Haythornthwaite at once preferred it to all the other residences that he had viewed. In particular he admired the library, a large room with three great windows and a stone fireplace and a small collection of books, all concerning magic. Mr Haythornthwaite had never taken much interest in the subject beyond the schoolboy knowledge that every Yorkshireman must have; and he had resolved to lay aside reading for the pursuits of a country gentleman, now that he had retired from business. But as he examined the volumes – which were of some antiquity – he was taken with the sudden conviction that he should restore the library and fill it with as many books of magic as he could find.

He left the house with the name of an attorney in York who would be able to settle the matter, Mr Otherlander assuring him that no other purchaser would be allowed to see the estate in the meantime. The attorney – whose name was Robinson – drew up the contract for sale the same day and by the end of the week, Mr Haythornthwaite was master of Hurtfew Abbey.

He set himself to furnishing the house to his own tastes and to discovering its history. Mr Otherlander told him of the legend that the oldest parts of the estate were founded by the Raven King; and that pleased Mr Haythornthwaite very much. But the steward could not tell him why the old abbey fell into disrepair in later times; and Mr Robinson said he did not know who had built the Queen Anne house or why, it seemed, they had never lived there, although he assured Mr Haythornthwaite that he might keep the books that he had found in the library. Mr Haythornthwaite had no ancestral portraits of his own to hang on the main staircase and he had hoped to purchase and display those of the previous family. But now he devoted the funds to buying more volumes of magic.

Some six months later he sent to York for his only relatives; two sisters, both widows and with three young sons between them. Their brother explained to them that he had no expectations of marrying or fathering a child of his own and so he intended to draw up a will and to divide his property and fortune amongst his nephews as he saw fit.

His elder sister Mrs Clatterbuck was sure that her own two fine boys would triumph over the younger, Mrs Norrell, and her sickly son, who would not raise his head or leave his mother’s side unless it was to read a book. But at the end of three days Mr Haythornthwaite announced that everything he owned was to be left to Gilbert Norrell and the will was drawn up directly by Mr Robinson.

Mrs Clatterbuck was not used to losing to any person - least of all her younger sister - and she stormed and pleaded to change her brother’s mind. But all the answer she received was that Mr Haythornthwaite was sure that his youngest nephew would prove the best guardian of his library and that he would need the income from the rest of the estate to maintain and improve it. Mrs Clatterbuck was proud to say that neither of her sons had ever opened a book except when forced to do so by a schoolmaster’s cane and she greeted this explanation with all the reasonableness that might be expected.

As for Gilbert Norrell, he made no protest when he was told that he was a great boy of twelve now, and so must leave his mother’s petticoat government and go to live with his uncle at Hurtfew. Mrs Norrell died a little while later, as quietly as she had lived, and without having seen her son again; all that he had to remember her by was the longcase clock rescued for him by Aunt Bardsley. It stood in a corner of Mr Norrell’s sitting room, as small and unremarkable as Mrs Norrell herself. But its tick, soothing and low, sometimes recalled to her son the sound of his mother’s voice and so it remained where he could sit of an evening and listen to it for a while.

Mr Haythornthwaite died having never altered his will or reconciled with his sister and at twenty Gilbert Norrell found himself absolute master of a fine estate and a great fortune. He was now a man a little younger than John Childermass and others supposed him to be, and he ruled his one kingdom of Hurtfew as absolutely as ever the Raven King ruled his three; more so in fact. John Uskglass after all had to contend with charcoal burners who mocked him and Cornish witches who almost charmed away his heart and lands. But who was there to mock or charm Mr Norrell?

In person, he was small and plain with blue eyes that blinked a great deal and he always wore a wig in the style of some twenty years previous when he had been a young man – in so much as Mr Norrell had ever been young. His life’s business was the purchase and study of books of magic and it was generally agreed that he had the finest library of such volumes in Yorkshire if not England. He had pondered on these books to a depth that might have surprised his neighbours, who found him a very dull fellow when he occasionally came to dine. Mr Norrell thought his neighbours equally tedious; he only wanted to live a life of order and study and any deviation from this caused him a great deal of annoyance.

This Saturday evening was one such inconvenience. Mr Norrell had been obliged to accept an invitation from Mr Thomas Wilson to the Lord Mayor’s Ball at the Assembly Rooms. He hated dancing and noise as much as he hated travelling to York but he could not refuse such a request from the bookseller who had supplied so many of the great volumes now lining the library at Hurtfew.

Mr Norrell had been the only serious hunter of magical books in England for some time, his fortune and strong will generally overcoming any opposition. His only rival for many years had been the Duke of Roxburghe; whose occasional raids on the Yorkshire book market from Floors Castle Mr Norrell considered in the same light as his ancestors had the Scottish Reivers who once upon a time had poured over the border to take their cattle. But in recent months he had become aware of another invisible figure roaming about the north of England and snatching away volumes (which should have been Mr Norrell’s) as ruthlessly as if he were carrying them off into Faerie. It would not do therefore to snub Mr Wilson.

At seven o’clock a carriage was brought round to the front door of the Abbey. Mr Norrell rose from where he had been listening to the longcase clock in the sitting room, sighed once, and went out to meet it. He gave instructions to the coachman, whose name was Davey, that the carriage was to be outside the assembly rooms on Blake Street to bring him home at half past nine precisely and then got in to be driven to York. The countryside in early summer was charming in the evening sunlight but Mr Norrell did not regard it.

He arrived at the assembly rooms a little after eight; entered, gave his hat and cloak to the footman and went to greet the Lord Mayor and Mrs Wilson. He stayed in the main hall behind one of the pillars for exactly ten minutes before he took a glass of punch from the refreshments table and left to go up to the second floor where the reading room could be found.

He opened the door, glad to hear that the sound of the music downstairs was faint and noted with pleasure that now that the sun had faded a fire had been set in the grate. Then he went immediately to the bookshelves. There were no books of magic at the assembly rooms – Mr Norrell would have bought them if there had been, to rescue them from such an unsuitable public place where anyone might read them – but there were other works which he considered to be acceptable substitutes for an evening.

He took down a volume of Mr Gibbons’s _Decline and Fall_. Some felt that this history was not entirely respectable but Mr Norrell disagreed; it had footnotes and books with footnotes were always respectable – novels, for instance, did not have footnotes. Then he went to sit down in one of the high-backed armchairs by the fire to read.

It was only then that he realised that he was not alone. There was another gentleman already seated by the fire and looking over some form of manuscript spread out over a side table. Mr Norrell’s first thought was to withdraw but then the other looked up and said “I do beg your pardon.”

Mr Norrell bowed stiffly and considered the speaker now that he could see his face. He was not in the habit of noticing appearances but he saw that the gentleman opposite – for a gentleman he clearly was - had very pleasing features and that his smile was amiable yet modest. He decided to remain and lowered himself into the opposite chair.

“Norrell,” he said.

“Mr Segundus,” said the other. “I suppose that you also prefer reading to dancing, sir, and were inveigled here by well-meaning friends?”

Mr Norrell had no friends but he nodded and asked what manner of manuscript his new acquaintance was studying.

“It is some writing of my own,” said Mr Segundus, “a small work on the fairy-servants of Dr Martin Pale. I hope to have it published later in the year. However, before I do so, I should very much like to have it read over by some scholar older and wiser than myself and I have not been able to find one as yet.”

Mr Norrell had never written a book but, like many such people, he was sure that he would make a much better fist of it than most of those who had. “You will not find any such scholar in York,” he said. “But I have studied magic for twenty years or more. You may have my opinion if you wish.”

“Oh, Mr Norrell of Hurtfew,” said Mr Segundus with a blush. “I should be honoured.”

Mr Norrell silently agreed that indeed Mr Segundus would be and Mr Segundus began to read. He had a remarkably pleasant tone and Mr Norrell, who sometimes went days without hearing any voice, even his own, found the effect very soothing. He gazed at the other as he read; it was a charming sight - Mr Segundus having a regular profile that was well framed by the firelight – so much so that when the latter paused and asked hesitantly for a verdict, Mr Norrell realised that he had not listened to his words at all for some time.

“I think that it shows promise but I should like to examine it in more detail,” he said to cover his confusion. “Might I borrow the manuscript and return it with my annotations?”

“Oh! I should not want to put you to the trouble,” said Mr Segundus “and it is my only copy. Perhaps....”

He hesitated and coloured; Mr Norrell had no more idea of how to continue the conversation than Mr Segundus and remained tongue tied as well. It seemed that this new acquaintance would end as quickly as it had begun. Then there was a chuckle from the shadows on the other side of the room.

Mr Norrell started up and turned around. “Who is there?” he said.

A third personage moved towards the fire. He was dressed like Mr Norrell in the fashion of twenty years ago, although his costume was tattered and patched beyond description and he wore no wig. Mr Norrell was obliged to look up at him as he was some inches taller. When he did so, he saw that this other person was carrying a book. He peered at the title; it was Paris Ormskirk’s _Revelations of Thirty-Six Other Worlds_. Only the Duke of Roxburghe was known to own a copy of this famous volume and Mr Norrell had long coveted it.

“Where did you get that?” he said. “Give it to me!” And he reached out to take the book from the stranger’s arms. The other however raised his hands a little so that Mr Norrell could not reach it.

“I acquired it from a country gentleman near Ullswater who was using it as a stable doorstop,” he said with a smile.

“Acquired it – stole it you mean,” said Mr Norrell who had taken in his poverty of dress and who generally felt that any magical book that he did not possess had been stolen from him. “And now you are pretending to read it with dirty fingernails!”

He turned to Mr Segundus. “This fellow is some thief who has heard that I am to be here tonight and who wishes to sell me this book for my library. Well, what do you want for it then? Quickly, before I call the footmen and the constable.”

“This gentleman is Mr Childermass,” said Mr Segundus in some confusion. “We are both members of the Learned Society of York Magicians and I believe that this book is part of our library. Mr Childermass was good enough to donate it some months ago.” He swallowed. “I did not know that he was here.”

Childermass bowed low to Mr Segundus and a little less low to Mr Norrell. “Indeed, I am a member of the York Society; and I was enjoying listening to your little discussion of fairy- servants – not that it seemed to be progressing very far. Perhaps there is something in Ormskirk that can help you.”

He began to turn the pages of the _Revelations_ in a deliberate way and to run his fingers down the pages while Mr Norrell perhaps reflected on how his already low opinion of the York Society was sinking even lower.

 “This may be to the point,” said Childermass at last. He read out a passage that sounded like nothing so much as an old shepherd’s counting rhyme set down badly.

“Now what can that mean?” he asked. “Ormskirk must have thought that it was worth something since he took the trouble to record it but I cannot see that it has any use whatsoever. Maybe he set it down to make himself look clever – he was a schoolteacher after all – and to hide the fact that his spells do not work. But that is the problem with books. People write them to look learned and other men read them to do the same. Meanwhile magic has died in England and magicians are arguing over footnotes and scribbles.”

Mr Segundus gazed down at his own manuscript as if little disconcerted by this opinion.

“Read that passage out again,” said Mr Norrell very sharply.

Childermass snorted but did as he was told. When he had finished, Mr Norrell smiled, put his hands behind his back and walked up and down the room almost with a swagger.

“You thought that those words meant nothing; if you knew how to study as well as scoff you would have seen that that passage is a garbled version of a spell. The Aureates used it with a bowl of water to conjure visions of missing things or people – it has long been thought lost. Dr Pale gives some clues to it in his book.”

 “Martin Pale never wrote a book,” said Childermass.

“Yes he did - _De Tractatu Magicarum Linguaram,_ ” said Mr Norrell. “That means...”

“I know what it means,” said Childermass. “You have a copy of it? What did you pay for it?”

“Three hundred guineas,” said Mr Norrell, who never found it vulgar to talk of money when capturing a book was concerned.

“You were a fool,” said Childermass. “I could have found you a copy of any book for twenty.”

Meanwhile poor Mr Segundus looked from one to the other of his companions, quite forgotten by them both it seemed.

“Perhaps we could all sit by the fire and read Ormskirk together?” he ventured. “I should certainly like to hear more of the spell that you mentioned Mr Norrell.”

“Yes, let us call to the waiter for a bowl of water and we can try it directly,” said Childermass. “You can perform this magic I take it, sir, since you speak so freely of it?”

Mr Norrell paused. “I...that is to say, if I could perform the spell I would not display it like a conjuror’s trick for all to see.” Then he seemed to think that he had spoken too openly and was silent.

Childermass rolled his eyes: Mr Segundus had almost determined to step between the two, when voices were heard outside the door.

“I cannot hear Segundus – what is he about? And why is Childermass there? I knew that rogue was plotting; go in, Honeyfoot, before he spoils everything.”

Childermass sighed and opened the reading room door; Dr Foxcastle, Mr Honeyfoot and several others were revealed outside, bent over the keyhole. 

“Dr Foxcastle, President of the Learned York Society of Magicians,” said that gentleman, advancing on Mr Norrell not the least abashed. 

“You are responsible for this person?” said Mr Norrell, pointing at Childermass. “I want to know why he is allowed to haul around a valuable book of magic that he says is part of your library. Since when have you had a library anyway? I want to know what other volumes you have and where you got them.” 

“We may have what library we please, sir, I believe,” said Dr Foxcastle. “You are not the Bonaparte of Yorkshire libraries. I might just as well ask to see your collection at Hurtfew once more; in fact, if demands are being issued in this manner that is what I shall do.” 

Mr Norrell looked from Dr Foxcastle, to Childermass and the _Revelations_ and then to Mr Segundus, still clutching his manuscript.

“Very well,” he said at last. “You may call at Hurtfew at 3:00 pm on Friday 19th June. That is in two weeks time; I shall call on you to see the society’s library a week earlier.”

“A week later,” said Dr Foxcastle. “And I assume that you will be giving us dinner; you cannot send us back twenty miles to York without a bit of food and drink.”

Mr Norrell nodded; it seemed that he now wished to agree to whatever would get him out of the door the quickest.

“Capital; it will only be the gentlemen that you see here, all very learned scholars,” said Dr Foxcastle, very pleased with his victory. “Not this person,” he added, with a toss of his head to Childermass and a wink to Mr Norrell.

“No, he may attend as well; let him see what genuine learning is for once,” said Mr Norrell.

“Well, you are not riding in my carriage,” said Dr Foxcastle to Childermass. He might have said more but his attention had now fallen on the _Revelations_ still in the man’s hands.

Mr Norrell made for the door; there he paused. “I should like to send you a book if I may,” he said quietly in Mr Segundus’s direction with his head bowed.

“Of course,” said Mr Segundus. “You may find me at..at..,”

“Mr Honeyfoot’s residence, High-Petergate,” said Mr Honeyfoot, quickly.

Mr Norrell bowed but before he could escape, a final person barred his way and spoke to him; a small dark-haired gentleman. “A most generous invitation, sir; nothing could be more delightful than to peruse our magical heritage in a rustic setting on a June evening. I thank you on behalf of myself and Mr Lascelles.” But Mr Norrell was already hurrying down the staircase to find his carriage.

“Who on earth was that?” said Dr Foxcastle. “And who is Mr Lascelles?”

“The little chap from downstairs and his friend I think,” said Mr Honeyfoot. “Why does Childermass have that book by the by?”

But Childermass had vanished by some means that did not involve the reading room door; and Dr Foxcastle was left to wonder at how the _Revelations_ that he carried home so carefully after every society meeting and locked in his own bookcase for safekeeping came to be at the York Assembly Rooms. He wondered even more, later that night, when he returned home and found the book back where he was sure that he had left it.

“It seems that Mr Norrell wishes to speak to you further,” said Mr Honeyfoot to Mr Segundus as they walked home. “I take it that your conversation was amiable?”

“We were rather distracted by Childermass; I could wish that they had both got a better introduction to each other,” said Mr Segundus. “But he is certainly a very learned gentleman; he spoke of books and ideas that I have never encountered before and yes, I should like to continue the acquaintance. Certainly I am eager to have his opinion on the disappearance of English Magic. He may even have some thoughts on how to revive it. The truth I think is that both of us spend a great deal of time alone and it has made us a little awkward; I should like to see how we might read and study together.”

“Well, we shall see what book he sends you tomorrow maybe; that is a great favour from Mr Norrell in itself. But you know, John, your friends intend for this acquaintance to make you happy; do not think that you must continue it for our sakes if you have doubts.”

“I remember that always,” said Mr Segundus. They had reached Mr Honeyfoot’s house and paused outside.

“I would invite you in, but the young ladies would keep you talking until three if you entered,” said Mr Honeyfoot with a smile. “Come for breakfast at ten.”

“I shall - good night, sir,” said Mr Segundus. “You can tell me who that strange gentleman was who invited himself to dinner with his friend when I do.” Then he departed for Lady- Peckitt’s yard and Mr Honeyfoot went into his house to see what his wife and daughters had been doing.

 

The Honeyfoot ladies had not gone to the ball; Mrs Honeyfoot and Miss Honeyfoot were attending a soiree at Lady Norton’s house to greet Miss Caroline, lately returned from London. Miss Eliza was too young to be out. Miss Jane might have accompanied her father to the assembly rooms since she greatly loved a dance; but she had discovered to her surprise that she did not like the thought of being there without her sisters and so had stayed at home. Mr Honeyfoot had therefore gone alone and had immediately been impressed into Dr Foxcastle’s brigade of matchmakers.

Mr Segundus had been sent upstairs to the reading room directly on arrival, lest Mr Norrell slip past him somehow; Mr Thorpe had been stationed at the ballroom door ready to signal Mr Norrell’s arrival. The rest of the society stood ready to receive their orders and dared not even tap a toe to the fiddlers’ playing.

“The more I think of it, the happier I am that I conceived this plan,” said Dr Foxcastle to Mr Honeyfoot. “Now, you keep an eye out for Childermass; I am sure that he means some mischief – this wedding would not suit him at all. Once the society is joined in marriage with Mr Norrell we will have no need of him and his books.”

Mr Honeyfoot said that keeping an eye on Childermass was easier said than done. “And I do not think that Mr Norrell would exactly regard us as in laws,” he added.

“Well, who else will Segundus have to be in his wedding party at the Minster?” said Dr Foxcastle. “He will ask me to stand with him at the altar of course; but your girls can be bridesmaids I suppose. This is a great thing that we are doing for him and Norrell after all; Segundus will be a wealthy man in a few years time when he inherits. And Norrell has no more idea than a mooncalf of how to get himself a husband; there is no one knocking on his door come Mayday Morning. He should be thankful that we are giving him one with a fine face on him.”

“Indeed; how many happy marriages would never have come to pass if the spouses’ friends had not intervened and encouraged?” said a voice at Mr Honeyfoot’s elbow. “And the alliance of wealth with beauty is always to be cheered.”

This new speaker was a small black-haired gentleman of around twenty five, with perfect linen and dress, who had slipped into the conversation some time before without anyone noticing.

“Mr..?” said Mr Honeyfoot.

“Christopher Drawlight,” said his new acquaintance, “lately arrived from London to enjoy the charms of York with my friend, Mr Lascelles.”

He bowed and indicated another gentleman seated on the far side of the room who seemed chiefly concerned with avoiding the eyes of the rest of the company lest they ask him to dance.

“So, I regret that I am not acquainted with the Norrells; is the family much in Town?” continued Mr Drawlight in such a friendly way that Mr Honeyfoot could not help but reply.

“No, Mr Norrell seldom comes to York; he likes to remain at Hurtfew,” he said.

“Ah! I meant was he ever in London – or maybe Bath,” said Mr Drawlight with a smile. “ _That_ is what one means by The Town, after all.”

“Of course,” said Mr Honeyfoot, who had never been to London or Bath or ever wished to. Mr Drawlight bowed low to him and began to make his way back to Mr Lascelles by turning through the pillars that surrounded the dance floor. This allowed him to join and leave a number of conversations as he went with all the grace of a snake weaving its way through summer grasses, until he reached his friend again.

“Who was that you were talking to?” said Mr Thorpe who had joined the party at last and seized a glass of wine as reward. “Norrell is here, by the way.”

Mr Honeyfoot explained; “And that is his friend, Mr Lascelles,” he added. “Up from London, he said. They both seem to be very fashionable gentlemen.”

Mr Thorpe regarded the two of them, now deep in conversation. “That one seated seems very certain of his own worth to be sure; it is a shame that the sole of the shoe he is turning towards us has a patch.”

 

“I have heard something very amusing, Henry,” said Christopher Drawlight to Mr Lascelles, bending so that he might whisper into his ear. “There is a Society of Magicians – actual conjurors! – here in York and they have all come to the ball tonight to try to introduce one of their number to another disagreeable ugly magician who only comes to town once a year, with a view to marrying them off. They are upstairs, flirting now!”

“And what will the dowry be - turnips?” said Mr Lascelles with a yawn. “I told you to discover something of use, not rustic lovemaking.”

“Oh but that is the thing. The York magician is poor but very handsome – for York, I suppose, not for London – and the country magician is a little mouse called Norrell who never goes out but who has a large country estate– everyone I have spoken to here tonight assures me of it. Whoever marries him will be very wealthy.”

Mr Lascelles considered this for a moment. Then - “but the marriage is not settled yet? Well, see what you can do, Christopher,” he said with a little more interest than he had shown towards anything else in York that evening.

Mr Drawlight stooped so that he could whisper even lower. “Henry – the coachman says that he will not carry us back to our lodgings if we do not pay him tonight.”

“Then you will have to tell him that you are sorry; we had hoped to hire him to take us to the country residence of our friend Mr Norrell. But if he is going to be tiresome about money...Now, this pantomime is being performed upstairs I think you said? ”

Drawlight nodded and hastened to the stairs; Mr Lascelles resumed his disdain of the room.

It was a little time before his companion returned, but he was smiling when he did so. “We are invited to Hurtfew – that is the name of Mr Norrell’s residence – in two week’s time for a dinner and to see his library.”

“A library?”

“A library in a very fine house, with great gardens and land around it and a wonderful income attached. As for the York magician, his name is Segundus and he is a sweet boy from what I could see, but with no grooming or accomplishments at all. He did not even wear rouge! I am sure that Mr Norrell would realise very quickly that his wealth entitles him to a much finer husband should such a candidate present himself.”

“Very well,” said Mr Lascelles. “I shall call on Mr Norrell tomorrow to thank him for the invitation; you are sure that we are invited?”

“I have my foot in the door – it needs only a little push for us to be in the drawing room and very comfortable in front of the fire,” said Christopher Drawlight. He tittered a little. “Oh Henry! You have been showing your patched shoe to the whole company all night, seated as you are.”

“Just as you have been carrying about that bruise on your cheek for them to wonder at,” returned Mr Lascelles as he stood to leave. “I told you to put more powder on it.”

That silenced Mr Drawlight until they reached their carriage outside. The driver was ready to leave without them but when he was assured that he would soon be taking his customers to Hurtfew Abbey – and when he saw Drawlight make a great bow to the departing Mr Norrell, who seemed to nod in return - he relented and drove them back to the room above a shop near Bootham Bar that was currently the residence of the two London gentlemen.

 

 

 

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

The next morning Mr Segundus came to High-Petergate at ten to take breakfast with Mr Honeyfoot and his family and in hopes that Mr Norrell would send him a book that day (even though it was Sunday). He found Mrs Honeyfoot and the younger ladies much amused by their father’s account of the ball and of all the people that he had met there; and Miss Honeyfoot a little sad that the press of well wishers at the previous evening’s soiree had stopt her from having any private conversation with Miss Caroline Norton after their two week’s separation.

“And we shall not even be able to speak in Church this morning,” she added, “for the sermon will interrupt us.”

“An affianced couple is a public entertainment my dear, I am afraid,” said her mother. “But you need only wait until this afternoon when Miss Caroline comes to tea and then the two of you may talk to each other for as long as you please.”

“Mr Drawlight did not wait: he simply marched in and seized what he wanted,” said Jane. “We should put him in command of the army; he would have had Sir Arthur Wellesley in Paris by now and thrown the victory dinner. I mean to take him as my tutor in all such society matters henceforth.”

Mrs Honeyfoot looked out of the window and put down her cup. “There is a carriage outside, Mr Honeyfoot, with a footman carrying a parcel,” she said.

Susan the maid went to the door and called out - “Lucas of Hurtfew Abbey, M’m.” The footman came in then; a little astonished to find himself shown straight into the parlour with all the family.

“Mr Norrell’s compliments to Mr Segundus,” he said with a bow, looking around the table.

“I am he,” said that gentleman, rising with a smile.

“Here is a parcel for you, sir, and also a letter which my master says that you are to read before you open the parcel, if you would be so kind.”

“Thank you,” said Mr Segundus, taking both and searching for the letter opener.

“Oh, and this is the note that you are to open before you read the letter, sir,” said Lucas, holding it out.

“So; note - letter- parcel?” said Mr Segundus.

“Yes - and also I was told to say that no one else must read the book and that I must take it back this afternoon – begging your pardon, sir.”

“Of course,” said Mr Segundus, not in the least ungraciously.

“And there was another message; Mr Norrell is sorry that he could not bring the book himself. But he had unexpected visitors this morning and was detained.”

“Were the visitors two London gentlemen?” said Jane.

“They were, Miss,” said Lucas.

 Mr Segundus meanwhile undid the note.

“To Mr Segundus: the letter is to be opened before the parcel,” he read out. He turned to the letter. “‘Sir - The work within is one which you will find useful for your own manuscript; it is not the most respectable book in my library but I trust that you will not judge my magical collection by it alone. I own many more volumes, as I hope you will discover for yourself in due course.”

“A handsome promise,” said Mrs Honeyfoot.

Mr Segundus continued: “‘I have marked the passages which I consider to be particularly useful for one of your current state of magical learning. You should read these first and should not attempt to study the other chapters without my guidance. Also, please do not read this letter out aloud in company.’ - Oh dear – ah well,” said Mr Segundus.

He turned to the parcel. Beneath several layers of paper and a sealskin coat was revealed Holgarth and Pickle’s C _uriose Observations upon the Anatomie of Faeries_.

“I have never heard of this volume,” said Mr Honeyfoot gazing at it with admiration.

“Yes, yes,” said Mr Segundus, already deep in its pages. Mr Honeyfoot, seeing that a book fever was upon his friend, took his elbow and guided him away from the marmalade. Then he led him to the stairs where Mr Honeyfoot’s own study lay and where he might read it in peace.

Mrs Honeyfoot asked Lucas if he and the coachman who was waiting outside would like to go to the kitchen for some tea but he shook his head.

“Davey and I have business of our own in York for the day, Ma’am.”

“Oh, I suppose that you wish to go to Church,” said Mrs Honeyfoot. “Shall you be at the Minster or with the Methodists in the chapel?”

“Wherever it pleases you to think of us, Ma’am,” said Lucas solemnly, “but we shall come back at three and return to Hurtfew with the book - before the highwaymen are up and about.”

 “Highwaymen steal away books?” said Miss Eliza.

“They do according to my master,” said Lucas with a smile. Eliza could only agree with Mr Norrell’s apprehensions; there were many books that she would willingly have used a pistol to possess.

The family then went to The Minster: Mr Segundus remained alone in Mr Honeyfoot’s study until a half past two, while the coffee and rolls sent up to sustain him languished on the stairs untouched. Then he rejoined the company in the parlour much excited, his black hair twisted into curls around his face as if Queen Mab herself had run her fingers through it.

“I have learned more of English Magic in one morning of reading than in the previous twenty years,” he exclaimed, pacing about the room with Mr Norrell’s book clasped to his breast. “Dr Pale had a fairy servant of whom I was completely unaware and my book would have been a wasted effort without him. And yet, each answer I have received brings with it a hundred new questions! It is as if I have stumbled into a great house where every passage that I take continually divides itself into three more. The further I wander the more I learn and yet the less I feel that I know.”

“Surely Mr Norrell is the person to answer such questions?” said Mr Honeyfoot.

“Yes,” said Mr Segundus, sinking down to the table at last, “I am afraid that I could not stop myself from reading the book entirely; I have written this letter to him, apologising for that but also begging that he reveal more to me. Am I too forward in doing this? We have scarcely been introduced after all.  Or perhaps I should go to Hurtfew directly with the book and see if he will speak with me tonight?”

The ladies told him that this might seem too ardent for such a new acquaintanceship but that the letter should certainly be sent. Mr Segundus placed it with the book, then bade the company farewell and hurried back to Lady-Peckitt’s yard with several pages of notes to study.

Lucas and Davey returned at three as they had promised, to escort Holgarth and Pickle back to Hurtfew. Lucas received the letter addressed to Mr Norrell and stowed it carefully in his pocket, promising to show it to his master directly on arrival. The carriage pulled away; Jane being much amused to see that while the footman had joined Davey on the seat, the book rode inside alone.

Four o’clock brought Miss Caroline Norton to High-Petergate, much to the delight of her future mother-in-law and sisters.

Sir Robert Norton was at first disconcerted when his oldest and favourite child told him that she wished for his blessing to marry a Miss Honeyfoot. Mr Honeyfoot was his equal in gentlemanliness it was true but not in estate or rank and he was inclined to refuse his permission. Miss Caroline however had replied with a smile that it was to be Miss Isabella or no one. Had one of her brothers declared similarly then Sir Robert would have smiled himself and then waited for the fancy to pass. But as he explained to his wife, “I have known since she was seven that I cannot change Caroline’s will and so I must bend to it. It is most unnatural to be ruled so by one’s own offspring.”

“Yes, my darling,” said Lady Norton from behind the York Chronicle, “you are not proud of her in the least.”

“Thank you for summoning me here, Ma’am,” said Miss Norton to Mrs Honeyfoot. “I love my cousins, uncles and aunts dearly but if only they would have elected a spokesman and had him tell me how happy my betrothal had made them all then I might have been spared thirty such speeches yesterday evening; and enjoyed some of that happiness myself.”

“Did you go riding in Hyde Park when you were in London, Caroline?” said Jane. “Tell us of all the personages that you met.”

“There were a great many notable people there but none of them interested me as half as much as the one person who was not,” said Miss Norton with a smile and a glance.

“We have London visitors in York,” continued Jane. “A Mr Lascelles and a Mr Drawlight. Did you meet them Caroline? They have invited themselves to dinner at Hurtfew which is a thing that has never been known. They will have the Archbishop throw them a cotillion next!”

“London is a little larger than you suppose, Jane,” said her mother. “Miss Norton cannot have met everybody there. Now, what of the pianoforte music that you were to look for, my dear?”

“I have it here,” said Miss Norton, handing it to Miss Isabella, “all the latest sonatas and songs – Mr Beethoven’s Irish Airs as well - arranged as duets. We might sit down and play them through directly if you wish.”

“It would give me the greatest pleasure,” said Isabella, rising from the table and offering her arm.

“Oh yes - and I can sing as well,” said Jane. She seized the music from her sister and hurried to the pianoforte.

“Would you not rather come into the sitting room with Eliza and myself and look through the beautiful magazines that Miss Norton has brought us?” said her mother.

“No - you know how Caroline loves to hear me sing,” said Jane, stationing herself by the instrument. “And besides, who else is to be chaperone if you are going into the other room?”

“But I have not finished distributing my gifts,” said Miss Caroline, with a smile. “Here, dear Jane; I brought this from Mayfair for you especially.”

It was a piece of dot muslin; Jane immediately put down the music sheets and ran upstairs to her bedroom to stand in front of the mirror and have her mother and Susan pin it around her.

“And for Eliza,” said Miss Norton “the last volume of Mrs Radcliffe’s _The Italian_ which I know you have not read.”

Eliza clasped the book to her and fell amongst the window seat cushions dead to the world. The affianced couple were at last able to sit by the pianoforte and speak to each other uninterrupted.

“Izzy my darling, I recall that I did hear Mr Lascelles’s name when I was in London,” said Miss Caroline. “It was in connection with some unpleasant piece of business – I do not know the details but I remember that my cousins declared that no respectable family would entertain him henceforth. And now he is insinuating himself with Mr Norrell; Mr Norrell is not much in Society is he? Not much of a judge of men, I mean.”

“No he is not; Caro, do you think that we should ask my father to speak to Mr Norrell? I would not like Mr Segundus to meet such a man.”

“We know very little at the moment and it may only be gossip; I shall write to my Aunt Charlotte and discover what the truth is. Then we can ask your parents’ advice.”

“Very well Caro; but you know that they are likely to agree with whatever you have to say on the matter.”

They turned at last to the music; the duets meant so much laying of heads very close, so much crossing of arms and brushing of hands that they soon forgot Mr Lascelles. Miss Eliza the chaperone meanwhile read on, quite unaware of anything but her book.

 

 “What a Sunday for visitors!” said Mr Honeyfoot to his wife that night. “We shall have our day of rest tomorrow I hope.”

But at ten o’clock the next morning Mr Norrell’s carriage drew up outside High-Petergate, Lucas opened its door and Mr Norrell was shown into the parlour where the family were again at breakfast.

He had, he explained to Mr Honeyfoot, been obliged to come to York so early by the letter that Mr Segundus had sent to him yesterday and he must speak to that gentleman about it immediately.

Was there something in it that had offended him? Mr Honeyfoot asked, amazed.

Offence! Said Mr Norrell. He was not concerned with such petty niceties. “But I do not see Mr Segundus here. Has he risen from his bed this morning? Are you sure that he is still living?” He looked to the stairs as if he might spring up them himself to confirm Mr Segundus’s continued existence.

Of course Mr Segundus was still in his garret at Lady-Peckitt’s Yard; Mr Honeyfoot had only meant to spare his friend a little embarrassment when he had told Mr Norrell to send his book to High-Petergate instead and not to deceive him as to Mr Segundus’s residence. But now he was forced to prevaricate that the gentleman was out of the house while Mrs Honeyfoot sent Susan flying down the street to fetch him.

Mr Norrell was finally persuaded to give up his cloak and to sip a little chocolate; this restored him enough to be able to nod and mutter a thank you and acknowledgement to his hostess. In a few minutes Mr Segundus arrived in an unbuttoned coat and without a hat, just as eager it seemed to speak to Mr Norrell as the latter was to him.

“I am sorry that I was not here to greet you sir,” he said, coming into the parlour “but I did not expect to be honoured by a visit so soon.”

“I could scarcely remain at Hurtfew once I had read your letter; it is a wonder to me that I did not set out last night,” said Mr Norrell. He glanced around; “You have some private room here where we may converse?”

“No,” said Mr Segundus. He drew himself up a little. “I am sorry if you have been given the wrong impression sir but I do not live here; my home is at Lady-Peckitt’s yard. My landlady Mrs Pleasance will take any message for me and I should be happy to invite you there now. However the room in which I reside is not large enough for two people to be at ease there together – in truth it sometimes feels a little crowded when I have a large book open.”

 “Why should I care that you live in Lady-Peckitt’s yard and not here?” said Mr Norrell with some bewilderment.

Mr Honeyfoot offered his own study to the two gentlemen – it was often borrowed by Mr Segundus – and the latter escorted Mr Norrell up to it. Then Mr Honeyfoot left with Miss Isabella to discuss some marriage business with Sir Robert Norton and Miss Caroline that was likely to take the rest of the day whilst Mrs Honeyfoot went as usual to pay her morning visits. Jane and Eliza were left in sole possession of the breakfast table.

Mr Norrell seated himself at Mr Honeyfoot’s desk and was at last able to explain to Mr Segundus what it was in his letter that had so alarmed him.

“You have read and mostly understood the passages on Master Fallowthought which I marked for you; that is very good. But from your letter I see that you have gone on and read the other pages which I did not intend for you to do at all. Then you have asked me several questions about Holgarth and Pickle themselves and if the method that they used to speak to the fairy could be employed today. Do you not know that fairies are a wicked race of deceivers and tricksters Mr Segundus? As for Holgarth and Pickle they were scarcely any better.”

 “But since magic is dead in England was it not simply an academic question?” said Mr Segundus. “The fairies went away with the magic after all. I only meant could Holgarth and Pickle’s method be used to summon fairies if magic were to be revived. In other words would a revived modern magic be the same as the magic of earlier times?”

 He gazed eagerly at his companion’s face as he spoke; and Mr Norrell was put into a quandary. He wished to rebuke Mr Segundus for venturing onto such dangerous magical territory alone – and it was very hard for Mr Norrell to resist the temptation to issue a rebuke on any occasion. But he wished also to continue to sit with Mr Segundus and to watch his enthusiasms chase so charmingly across his face. As for Mr Segundus, he had no more idea of his own attractions than a birch tree; so he continued to gaze at Mr Norrell and won the argument quite without effort.

“So you have not tried to speak to such a creature?” said Mr Norrell at last.

“How could I sir, when a fairy has not been seen in England for four hundred years?”

 “Yes of course – but please promise me that you will make no such attempt.”

“Very willingly, sir,” laughed Mr Segundus. “I have not been able to make the simplest spell work in ten years of trying, so I should not expect to be able to summon a fairy.”

“Not even the simplest spell?” said Mr Norrell with what seemed to be an air of superiority. “Well – now that I am satisfied that you will not be attempting to consort with Dick-come-Tuesday and the like, we shall turn to your earlier question – what would be the nature of a revived English magic?”

He began to pace about the room and discourse and Mr Segundus seized the nearest pen and paper ready to make notes.

 

Meanwhile, Jane was leaning out of the window of the parlour below, despite Eliza’s gentle protests and feeding sugar lumps to Mr Norrell’s horses (Davey and Lucas being busy with some fault on one of the carriage wheels).

“You should listen to your sister, Miss Jane, unless you want your fingers bitten,” said a voice close by. Jane looked to her side; what she had thought was only a morning shadow on the wall was revealed as Childermass with a package tucked under his arm.

“Horses do not eat fingers, do they?” she said, withdrawing hers a little.

“Indeed they do; I had an old acquaintance who swore he lost three of them to Rhadamanthus when he was winning the Epsom Derby. May I come in?”

Jane went to open the door: Childermass entered the parlour and explained that he had brought a book to show Mr Norrell and Mr Segundus.

“Mama and papa are not here,” said Jane “but I suppose that you may go up to papa’s study and talk to them; tell them that you are their chaperone if they ask.” As for Eliza she was too engaged in looking from Childermass to the illustrations of the hero Vincentio di Vivaldi in Mrs Radcliffe’s _The Italian_ to say a word. Childermass tipped his hat to them and went upstairs before either could wonder how he knew that Mr Norrell and Mr Segundus were there in the first place.

When he entered the study he found Mr Norrell still discoursing and Mr Segundus listening very earnestly with his chin in his hands. Childermass sat down at the desk beside him and adopted a similar pose. Mr Norrell perhaps found this a touch satirical for he immediately stopt his lecture and frowned.

“What are you doing here?” he said. “Nobody sent for you did they?”

“Visiting my fellow Society members Mr Segundus and Mr Honeyfoot,” said Childermass. Mr Segundus, who had been so absorbed in Mr Norrell’s lecture that he had not heard the other enter, jumped at his name.

“Childermass often calls here, sir,” he said, “You need not fear that Mr Honeyfoot would not admit him. What is that under your arm Childermass?”

Childermass drew the _Revelations of Thirty-Six Other Worlds_ out of a coal sack. “I believe that this was wanted for further inspection.”

Mr Norrell sprang on it with a cry.

“I shall not ask how you persuaded Dr Foxcastle to release it to your custody,” said Mr Segundus with a smile. “Will you stay and study with us, though? Mr Norrell is talking of the revival of English magic and that is a subject that you have an interest in I know.”

Childermass said that he would be pleased to if Mr Norrell would allow it; Mr Norrell wished to do no such thing but he feared that Childermass would take the book and perhaps Mr Segundus with him if he refused. So he merely sniffed and continued his lecture.

“I must ask, sir,” said Mr Segundus after a few minutes, “how could English magic be revived without the help of fairies? Is it not true that the Aureates – including Dr Pale – accomplished their greatest feats of magic with their help?”

“I have never heard that Catherine of Winchester had fairy servants,” said Childermass, “or the Raven King.”

“But he was brought up in Faerie and had a whole kingdom of fairy subjects to aid him did he not?” said Mr Segundus, turning to him. “Oh, and Dr Pale was taught by the Lady Catherine even though there were two hundred years between them. Would he not have used fairy servants on her advice?”

“What I have never understood is why John Uskglass could not stop his fairy subjects stealing away his Christian ones,” said Childermass, taking out his pipe.

“Perhaps it was because he was rather inclined to carry off a pretty face himself when the mood took him, according to the old songs,” sighed Mr Segundus.

Mr Norrell gazed out of the window towards the Minster in silence and waited to be begged to continue his speech; but his two fellow magicians were now engaged in singing _The Raven King_ to one another - evidently the discussion would not wait for him; so he came gradually over to the table and sat down to listen and finally to speak when a gap in the conversation allowed him.

This was a new experience for Mr Norrell; he had never been able to discuss Magic with anyone else before. His uncle Haythornthwaite had divined very quickly that his nephew was his superior in understanding the subject and had allowed him to teach himself, merely buying any books that he desired. Mr Segundus and Childermass did not have his library or years of study to draw on but they had reserves of intelligence and a great many ideas and questions; and besides there were two of them to Mr Norrell’s one. In short, much like the American colonies, a little democracy of letters had broken away and founded itself in Mr Honeyfoot’s study and Mr Norrell could not lord himself over it quite as he would have liked.

The Minster bells struck two; “We should eat a morsel, I think,” said Mr Segundus. “Mrs Honeyfoot will not mind if we have bread and cheese from the kitchen.”

Mr Norrell nodded and stared at Childermass who leaned back and settled himself more firmly in his chair.

“I went down for coffee at eleven,” he said. “And you, Mr Segundus, fetched more ink and paper at twelve. I believe that it is some other person’s turn to run an errand.”

“You need only ask Mrs Honeyfoot sir,” said Mr Segundus to Mr Norrell in an encouraging way. Mr Norrell – who was hungry himself – was therefore obliged to go down the stairs to the parlour and stand in the doorway until Mrs Honeyfoot, now returned from her visits, looked up from her embroidery, jumped a little and said that she would be happy to send Susan up with supplies.

Thus fortified, the three scholars remained at their discussions until four, when Mr Norrell, having been allowed to copy the passage in _Revelations_ that had so caught his attention at the Lord Mayor’s ball, announced that he must return to Hurtfew but would come back the next morning with more books; Mr Segundus was kind enough to warn Mrs Honeyfoot of this as he was leaving himself with Childermass.

It had been a most interesting day, said Mr Segundus as they walked down High-Petergate together. He had been greatly impressed by Mr Norrell’s scholarship and found him rather more agreeable than others had suggested. Childermass for his part said that the master of Hurtfew was perhaps not quite the gentleman fool that he had supposed him to be and that he would return himself tomorrow.

The next day’s study was not so harmonious. Mr Norrell began on the subject of the Raven King; he wished to correct any impression Mr Segundus might have formed from their discussions yesterday that John Uskglass’s return was necessary for the revival of English magic. Books contained all the essential information that a modern practical magician might need – should such a gentleman (or lady, interjected Mr Segundus) ever be discovered in England.

But was not John Uskglass the fount of all English magic asked Mr Segundus? Yes, in a manner of speaking but he had left us and never heeded any call to return; English magic should abandon the Raven King as he had abandoned us, said Mr Norrell.

Childermass snorted; Mr Norrell reminded him that his presence had not been requested; and the conversation descended from there to squabbling despite Mr Segundus’s best efforts. Childermass observed that all the books of magic in the world were of less use to magicians than the forests and moors of Yorkshire would they but listen to them. Mr Norrell invited Childermass to go and live in Garbutt Wood in a tree with the owls and test the theory. Finally, Childermass had informed Mr Norrell than when he spoke of the Raven King leaving England he sounded like a weeping lass whose sweetheart had got tired of her and had run off to sea to escape.

Mr Segundus went down to the parlour at this and sat for a few minutes taking tea with Mrs Honeyfoot while the ceiling above them creaked and rattled under the blows from two sets of feet, one large and one small, striding about the room. When the noises did not stop, Mr Segundus rose, bowed, walked back up the stairs and opened the study door with a bang. His quiet voice spoke for a few moments; then all was silence. When he returned a little later to request some coffee he told Mrs Honeyfoot that his two companions were now sitting and reading the same book together.

Mrs Honeyfoot congratulated him: “I think that I can make them friends,” said Mr Segundus.

On the third day Mr Norrell sent his regrets via Mrs Pleasance. Mr Segundus was philosophical; he had a great many notes to review and his manuscript to revise after all but Childermass seemed a little disappointed and at a loss as to what he was to do with his day. He stood in the open doorway of the garret for quite some time talking of Mr Norrell and what might have kept him away – “he has found someone else he likes to quarrel with better, Childermass,” said Mr Segundus with a smile.

But Mr Norrell returned almost every day; after a little while, when the three of them stopt for bread and cheese, the two gentlemen magicians talked to each other of matters besides magic. Mr Segundus was also an orphan from his early years and unlike Mr Norrell did not even have the consolation of a living aunt (albeit one who had wished him in his grave at twelve and every birthday after that); both of them had missed a mother’s comfort. Childermass, when asked, had only said that his own mother was not given overmuch to comforting. As for his father – “I was never introduced to him myself, gentlemen, so I cannot say that I have missed him.”

Mr Norrell brought more books from Hurtfew for Mr Segundus – and, he supposed, Childermass – to read. He also took to bringing in other supplies – his own favourite brand of chocolate, a superior kind of coffee and a great many quires of good paper and ink. Mr Honeyfoot - who had borne being excluded from his own study and all the interesting discussions held there very nobly – was inclined to be offended on his wife’s behalf at this apparent slight to her hospitality. But Mrs Honeyfoot patted his hand and told him not to concern himself. She was no more offended by Mr Norrell providing Mr Segundus with good coffee and paper than she was by Miss Caroline sending Isabella pomade and candied violets.

What then of the marriage prospects of Mr Segundus and Mr Norrell, Mr Honeyfoot asked his wife one evening. He had been out of the house on business himself a great deal and it was now only three days until the York Society’s dinner at Hurtfew. Dr Foxcastle would be sure to ask for news; could Mrs Honeyfoot give him her opinion of how things stood even if it were only after a two weeks acquaintance?

Mrs Honeyfoot could. That afternoon she and Miss Isabella and Miss Caroline had been seated in the parlour engaged in trimming bonnets and teasing each other a little over what colours et cetera should be used. Mr Norrell had come in to request coffee; had congratulated the two young ladies on their engagement; and had promised to be at the wedding. Miss Caroline had thanked him sincerely, although she knew very well that on the morning of the ceremony Mr Norrell’s footman would be sent with his regrets that a sudden headache prevented him from travelling.

Then Mr Norrell had said that he had heard that some thought that they were very young to be married and that their parents should never have allowed it – but that he for his part believed that they were each fortunate to have found someone that they could converse with so easily and should not delay. Then he had hurried back up the stairs.

“That may be a sign of how his mind is turning,” said Mr Honeyfoot. “What of Mr Segundus though?”

What indeed? Mr Segundus was a gentleman who wished to think the best of everyone; and his kind heart, quick perception and love of magic had found much to admire and even to cherish in Mr Norrell and his peculiar character over their short acquaintance. Society at large might not be pleased with the master of Hurtfew but Mr Segundus could see that Society in its turn had done very little to recommend itself to Mr Norrell.

Then again: the older magician had begun by being very anxious to please Mr Segundus, to give him books and presents and answers to his questions and to receive his smiles and thanks in return. As he had grown more confident in the friendship however, he had become a little dictatorial. Particular books of magic in Mr Norrell’s possession had been mentioned, it seemed, only to keep Mr Segundus on tenterhooks as to whether he should ever be allowed to see them; his answers on various magical controversies had grown very vague where they were given at all. Mr Segundus’s manuscript was now covered in so many of Mr Norrell’s comments and corrections that he was not sure that he could call himself its author any more.

One day, he had been obliged to send his regrets to Mr Norrell; an old friend from the south of England had arrived in York unexpectedly on the coach to Edinburgh and he meant to spend some hours with that gentleman before he travelled onwards to Scotland. Mr Norrell, having received the message on his arrival at High Petergate had thrown such a fit that Mr Honeyfoot had almost sent for a doctor; and Mr Segundus had been spoken to like an errant schoolboy on his return. He had not protested but even his gentle soul bridled at the treatment.

This was not entirely Mr Norrell’s fault; he had never had a friend; and he had very little notion of how to treat an equal, since he so seldom spoke to one (he did not meet anyone that he considered to be his superior from one year to the next). That was why, perhaps, for all their squabbles, his manner was more free with Childermass; after all, he met with his inferiors every day in the form of his servants.

Two days before the Hurtfew dinner Mr Norrell sent his coach to High-Petergate with an invitation for Mr Segundus to view the library there _a deux_ rather than in a press of people. When Mr Segundus returned in the evening he was very quiet and went up to speak to Mr Honeyfoot who was alone in the parlour. That gentleman greeted him warmly and asked for his impressions of Hurtfew.

“It is so very large and fine and silent,” said Mr Segundus, “so many rooms that must never be used, but with a fire lit in every one. And yet I was cold wherever I went.”

“That is natural in a house with a single gentleman and not a family I think.”

“Indeed – the library is magnificent beyond description; a great room entirely filled with books of magic and nothing else. Mr Norrell told me that if I were a more frequent visitor there then I should be allowed to study in the library at a little desk that he has set quite close to his own.”

“You are the only person in thirty years who has been shewn that library I believe. And do you mean to visit him more often – perhaps to remain one day?”

Mr Segundus sighed. “You mean the plan of marriage do you not? That is why I wished to speak to you tonight. I think that I could call Mr Norrell my friend after all the favours he has shewn me and I sincerely esteem him for his magical scholarship but is that enough for marriage? Then again, the best marriages are friendships I have been told. Please advise me, sir.”

“Mrs Honeyfoot and I have lived on the friendliest of terms for thirty years; Mr Thorpe of the York Society and I have been friends for thirty years and I esteem them both; but I have never confused Mr Thorpe and Mrs Honeyfoot,” said Mr Honeyfoot with a smile. “But only you can say what will make you happy, John.”

Mr Segundus left High-Petergate deep in thought. He had only gone a few steps when he met Childermass who took his arm, led him to the Old Starre Inn and put a pint of ale in front of him. Then he asked much the same questions as Mr Honeyfoot had and received the same replies.

“It is easy to see that Norrell has his eye on you,” said Childermass with a puff on his pipe. “Here is another question. I know that your great plan Mr Segundus was to open a magical academy where likeminded magicians could ponder the question of where English magic had gone and how it could be brought back. But you never had the money to pay for it. Now, if you marry Mr Norrell – and he will ask you sooner or later I am sure – you will have Hurtfew itself and its library and Norrell’s money at your disposal. But I have never heard you speak to him about it.”

“I have never dared,” said Mr Segundus with a blush.

“No, and why not? Because you know that he would refuse his support; he would not have you teaching magic to others – he would want to keep you, like magic, to himself. Now you may hope that your smiles will change his mind when you are married but be warned; when a rich gentleman marries a poor one he holds the whip hand always.”

“That is too far, Childermass – I do not believe that he would be tyrannical.”

“So you have not decided how you would answer a proposal? You would be marrying the man not his library, remember.”

“It is not only the books,” said Mr Segundus. “Childermass, have you never thought – when Mr Norrell speaks of a spell – that sometimes it seems that he speaks from something more than study? That he may speak from experience? I mean that he may be a practical magician.”

“Those white hands of his are too fine to be practical,” said Childermass shortly and addressed himself to the ale.

Both Childermass and Mr Segundus would have been surprised to learn that there was a third party to their conversation at the inn. That person was a small neat dark-haired gentleman whom the reader already knows as Mr Drawlight. He had been seated very comfortably on the other side of the high backed settle where the two had taken their ale; this had allowed him to hear everything that they had said without troubling them by actually introducing himself. As soon as he was able, he left the inn and went home to his own lodging above the shop near Bootham Bar.

His friend Mr Lascelles was already there sipping a glass of good Madeira and looking over a book and was very interested to learn what Mr Drawlight had to report about Mr Segundus’s plan for a school which Mr Norrell would not like, although Mr Drawlight was not exactly sure why.

“It hardly surprises me; Norrell is the kind of person who dislikes new things on principal and even in the provinces one cannot have one’s husband playing schoolmaster. And really there should never be secrets between spouses; I rather think that Mr Norrell’s friends have a duty to bring such deceit to his attention especially when it is being discussed in public houses.”

It was on the tip of Christopher Drawlight’s tongue to say that Mr Lascelles had in his time taken great advantage of the habit that some husbands and wives have of keeping secrets from each other but he thought better of it. Instead he began to examine a number of parcels that had been delivered in his absence and to exclaim over the contents; a fine pair of shoes, some beautiful linen and a pair of silver cufflinks amongst them.

The lodgings were indeed much improved from their mean, shabby state three weeks ago when the two London gentlemen had moved into them and gambled their last resources on tickets to the Lord Mayor’s Ball. There was now a fire in the grate – for the room was always cold even in summer - a stock of food and wine and some decent coverings on both the bed and the little broken-down sofa where Mr Drawlight slept.

All of these improvements had resulted from Mr Lascelles and Mr Drawlight’s new acquaintance with Mr Norrell which Christopher Drawlight would have considered to be one of the greatest triumphs of his career in Society if only it had been achieved in London instead of in York. It had started with the assumed invitation to Mr Norrell’s dinner for the York Society of Magicians. The very next morning after the Lord Mayor’s Ball, the London gentlemen had persuaded the coachman to drive them out to Hurtfew Abbey. There they had introduced themselves to Mr Norrell before the housemaid could stop goggling at them.

They would usually have been sent away; but Mr Norrell was in such a state of confusion over the book that he was to send Mr Segundus and whether he should take it himself that he quite forgot to be rude. Mr Drawlight had in fact helped to wrap the volume himself and sent it off with Lucas and Davey before offering his services in the organisation of the dinner. As he explained it was his only wish in life to be useful to others; he did not add that this was invariably with the intention that they should in turn become useful to him. An intimate dinner for fourteen gentlemen would scarcely exert him given the entertainments that he had been accustomed to overseeing in London.

Mr Norrell very seldom entertained at Hurtfew; now that he had sent the book on its own, all that he wished to do was to go to his library and pace up and down until he had a reply to his letter. He was therefore happy to receive Mr Drawlight’s thanks for the invitation and to agree that he should oversee the banquet. When Mr Drawlight delicately raised the question of expenditure he wrote out a quick note to Mr Robinson his attorney who dealt with his funds, instructing him to settle whatever bills Drawlight should send him.

Mr Drawlight had disappeared to the kitchen there to agitate Cook and the steward with his comments on the silver and the wine cellar. He emerged with a list of supplies for his proposed menu. Orders were sent the next day to the best butchers and vintners in York and also to a number of tailors and shoemakers. All the bills were settled by Mr Norrell’s attorney and even the coachman was paid.

Mr Drawlight also extended his friendship to Mr Norrell’s servants; when Lucas and Davey went away on Sunday it was to meet Mr Drawlight who had offered, before they left Hurtfew with the book, to stand them a draught at The Old Starre Inn. There he had learned from them that their master’s interest in Mr Segundus and his sending him a book was an unusual development. He had met with them several times more when they came into York and had been told of how the servants suspected that Mr Segundus was soon to be their new master and of how lucky they counted themselves that he was such a pleasant gentleman.

 Mr Lascelles, left alone with Mr Norrell when Mr Drawlight went to the kitchen, had attempted a few witty sallies aimed at the York Society of magicians and indeed at magic in general as a pursuit for the modern gentleman. He swiftly learnt from Mr Norrell’s frown that the master of Hurtfew was not simply an antiquarian who collected books of magic without reading them; and that in short if Mr Lascelles wished to become a close friend to Mr Norrell he would have to improve on the small stock of magical lore and history that he remembered from his schooldays at Harrow.

This was why he was now glancing over Mr Sutton-Grove’s _De Generibus Artium_. “It is as tedious as I feared,” he yawned. “Were you ever taught magic, Christopher?”

“You know that I never was in school, Henry,” said Mr Drawlight. “So, you do not fear Mr Segundus as a rival?”

“Not in the slightest.”

“And you think that you will like living in the North with a dull little husband?”

“Of course not; once we are married then I shall be able to return to London with a handsome allowance. Money will open all the doors that have been closed to me. Mr Norrell may stay in Yorkshire; I need not even tell people that we are married. I may visit him once or twice a year if it suits me.”

“So first you will make yourself so agreeable that Mr Norrell will wish to have you always by his side; but then he will be happy to let you go to London without him?”

“Why yes; you of all people should know that I can make myself agreeable and then very disagreeable indeed when I wish to; disagreeable enough for a thousand a year and a house in Harley Street I should think, to make me stay away.”

He stretched out his long legs and put down the book. “Come here with the basin and razor,” he said – “I feel as if I were an orang-utan in the jungles of Malay.”

Drawlight did as he was told; very soon Mr Lascelle’s fine complexion was restored to the smoothness and whiteness that he demanded. He looked at himself in the mirror that his friend held up with some satisfaction.

“There; and you will not disgrace me entirely.” He leant up and patted the mark on Drawlight’s cheek that had been there on the night of the ball. “See - it has scarcely left a mark; how silly you were to cry over it so.”

 

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

The London gentlemen had travelled so many times from York to Hurtfew in the previous fortnight that their coachman (whose name was Hardgrave) declared that his horses would soon know the way themselves; but his passengers should understand that the beasts would not go there without payment any more than their master. Mr Lascelles had swallowed the insult since the man’s services were still required but he had not forgotten it.

“When this business is finished I shall have that fellow whipped and turned off,” he said to his friend, throwing himself onto his bed and taking up his book. “You may think of what carriage I shall buy to return to London in if you wish.”

“Once I have completed my menu,” said Mr Drawlight. “There is not a pineapple to be purchased in Yorkshire; I never thought that I should stray so far from civilisation.”

“What? Surely all the great families here – the Honeyfoots - the Segunduses – dine on them daily?”

“The Nortons may; why have we not visited them Henry?”

“They are too much in London and the daughter is too clever. Young women should not be clever; it puts wrinkles on their foreheads.”

Mr Norrell had been baffled at first to discover that Mr Lascelles and Mr Drawlight were now his friends but since he was pleasantly distracted by his new magical acquaintances – and since Mr Drawlight had taken over the troublesome business of the dinner - he was happy to have them visit whether he was at home or in York. In practice he saw very little of them and listened to them even less; and he assumed - whenever he even bothered to consider the matter - that after the dinner they would both disappear as quickly as they had come.

Mr Drawlight had tried to amuse him once or twice with gossip and light conversation – the rash marriage of Miss Norton and Miss Honeyfoot – the rashness of hasty marriages to new acquaintances of lower rank and fortune in general – but had perceived that he was having very little effect. He had therefore removed himself to the dining room to plan his table. Here he was as happy and as innocently employed as a man of Mr Drawlight’s character could be. The silver cutlery did not snub him; the fine china plates never asked for funds to be repaid; the flowers were willing to be bound and arranged in whatever manner he pleased and when they withered they could be thrown aside without a moment’s unpleasantness. Mr Drawlight in turn shewed these objects all the tenderness that he would never have wasted on another Christian.

Mr Lascelles for his part had attempted some more discussions of magic. These did not go well and he had had to sit in silence and be lectured that the Raven King was not to be despised because he had once fallen in love with what Mr Lascelles was pleased to call a common Cornish trollop. He had then tried to compliment John Uskglass for his governance of the North only to be told that he had in fact been the worst king imaginable, always wasting his time on foolish love affairs. In short, Mr Norrell alone was allowed to judge the Raven King. Mr Lascelles had bowed his head to welcome the corrections but as with the coachman he had not forgotten them.

But for all that, he was happy with how his scheme was progressing. Mr Segundus’s visit to Hurtfew had disconcerted him a little; but Drawlight’s report of the conversation at the inn had cheered him again. There was nothing more suitable for using against an honest man after all than his own doubts and scruples and he looked forward to the magicians’ dinner with pleasurable anticipation. Mr Segundus was what Mr Lascelles considered to be a fool – it was a shame, said Mr Drawlight, for with that pretty face he could win what he wanted with a little art.

 

At two o’clock on the second Friday after the Lord Mayor’s ball Mr Honeyfoot’s carriage drew away from High-Petergate with Waters at the reins and four passengers within. Mr Honeyfoot himself was as excited as a child; Mr Segundus, dressed again in his new suit was rather quieter and gazed out of the window in silence. Childermass was busy with his pipe. Dr Foxcastle made up the fourth; he had been so anxious for news that he had sent his own carriage on ahead to Hurtfew with those of the other Society members and pushed his way in to Mr Honeyfoot’s to speak with Mr Segundus.

He began with some remarks about July being a fine month for weddings but when this got him no answers lent over and tapped Mr Segundus’s knee.

“Well, have you managed the business or not?” he said. Mr Segundus blushed.

“In two weeks?” said Childermass. “What is he, the King of Elfland?”

“Mr Norrell and Childermass and I have been studying magic together, sir” said Mr Segundus. “As for the other matter, I cannot say.”

“Nor will you be able to if all you have been doing is moping out of windows like a wet cat,” said Dr Foxcastle. “Smile and make yourself amiable, man! I trust that you have not been interfering,” he added to Childermass.

“If speaking the truth is interfering.....” began the other.

“Let us talk of something else that we all find agreeable,” said Mr Honeyfoot before he could finish. There was a pleasant silence for twenty minutes or more.

“At least there are no highwaymen in the afternoon,” said Dr Foxcastle at last. The view outside the carriage now shewed the plain green Yorkshire moors.

 “A lonely road is as good as midnight for a desperate man, whatever the hour,” said Childermass. “A small group of trees for cover” – he pointed the stem of his pipe to one such a little ahead – “and they could be down on us like wolves before we knew it.”

“Why would they think that we are worth robbing?” said Dr Foxcastle, clutching at his wig.

“They will have seen all of the fine coaches that the Society members are riding in going on ahead of us five minutes before in a procession and then ours – all alone behind like a weak lamb that the flock has abandoned. Of course, then they will find that we have nothing of much value and sell us to the pressgangs in Hull to make a little money; that way their afternoon will not have been entirely wasted. Or they may hang us from the trees if we are lucky.”

Dr Foxcastle pondered this in silence until they reached the Abbey. The setting, elegant park and house impressed the magicians as they drove up to it much as it had John Haythornthwaite thirty years before. Their fellow guests were already assembled in the hall and partaking of punch and water under Mr Drawlight’s direction. They were met as soon as they entered by Mr Norrell who stopped twisting his hands together and hastened to Mr Segundus.

“Why were you not with the others?” he said. “You know that I expected you a little earlier.” He took the other’s sleeve and began to lead him away.

But this would not do, explained Mr Drawlight, coming forward with a smile. Mr Norrell must escort Dr Foxcastle to the library as President of the Society. Dr Foxcastle was only too pleased to be at the front of any procession and so he and Mr Norrell led the way with the other magicians grouped behind. Meanwhile, Mr Lascelles fell into step with Mr Segundus.

“You will forgive me if I introduce myself to you directly, sir,” he said with a bow, “for I have heard so much that is favourable to you from our mutual friend that I feel that we are already acquaintances. I am the Mr Henry Lascelles that Mr Norrell will have talked to you about until you are quite bored of hearing of him.”

“Of course,” said Mr Segundus, giving him his hand a little flustered since Mr Norrell had made no mention of Mr Lascelles to him at all.

“I understand that you are a magician yourself; no doubt we shall soon be visiting your great house and library?”

“No -I am afraid that I am not in a position to match Mr Norrell’s hospitality.”

“Oh, of course, you are here in York for the season as am I? You mean to return Mr Norrell’s generosity by entertaining him at your London residence. I dare say that you keep your magical library there. I had hoped to invite him to the capital himself. I wonder if we might plot together to persuade him to leave Yorkshire for a little while? My London house is shut up at present – I cannot inflict last year’s colours and curtains on my guests for another season you understand – but you may find me at White’s in the meantime. I believe that a Mr George Segundus and I have played piquet there on occasion; a cousin of yours perhaps?”

“Sir, I have no London house, no club, no library and no family,” said Mr Segundus, never having realised before that these lacks were things to be ashamed of.

“Indeed; well then I understand why you have cultivated Mr Norrell’s acquaintance so eagerly,” said Mr Lascelles with a smile. “But I see that your servant wishes to speak to you.”

Childermass had now joined them. “This gentleman is not my servant; I do not have a servant,” said Mr Segundus.

“Of course you do not,” said Mr Lascelles. He bowed again and walked over to speak to Mr Drawlight who had stationed himself in the library much like the master of ceremonies at the York Assembly Rooms for the Saturday cotillion.

“That gentleman is a London friend of Mr Norrell’s,” said Mr Segundus to Childermass.

“Mr Norrell does not have London friends and gentlemen do not live above a shop in Bootham Bar,” said Childermass. But now they were within the library and other matters ceased to interest them.

All of the York Society agreed that the library was the Eighth Wonder of the World; that Mr Norrell was a modern day Ptolemy for having built it; that he was the first Theoretical Magician in England; that he deserved a peerage at least for having so preserved the country’s magical heritage. This praise soothed Mr Norrell’s nerves a little as he watched his guests running from shelf to shelf like a mischief of mice.

“Only a Yorkshireman could have done it, sir,” said Dr Foxcastle, holding out his hand so that Mr Norrell might have the honour of shaking it. “Of course, you are a bachelor and a single man can spend his time and money as he wishes; but a married man would have someone to tell him how clever he was to have accomplished this every day.”

As for Mr Honeyfoot, he skipped from book to book, from Belasis’s _Instructions_ to _The Language of Birds_ until he was dizzy. His only disappointment was that Mrs Honeyfoot was not there so that he might take her hand and whirl her around the room in happiness.

Mr Segundus meanwhile walked to a far corner where he hoped to be undisturbed and to read a little from the manuscript of _The Excellences of Christo-Judaic Magick_ that Mr Norrell had taken especial pleasure in showing him two days before. But when he reached the shelf the volume was gone; and he could not bring himself to ask Mr Norrell for the particular favour of seeing it again when Mr Lascelles might overhear the conversation and raise an eyebrow.

 Childermass, alone of the magicians, had walked once around the library, and then propped himself against a column deep in thought.

“You are thinking that they should all be torn up for kindling, I suppose,” said Mr Norrell at his elbow. He had eluded Mr Drawlight to try to find Mr Segundus but Mr Segundus in turn had eluded him.

“No; it is a great thing that you have done here – not just to have bought them but to have read them too. Many a man buys books because their spines look well upon his shelves and never thinks to open them. But see” – here Childermass took down a volume at random – “do you tell me that with all these books of magic gathered here together you have never done magic yourself? That it has not crept into your blood somehow? A Methodist would be drunk if he lived in a wine cellar with as many bottles as you have books here.”

“You know that magic is ended in England,” said Mr Norrell, blinking his eyes rapidly.

Childermass inclined his head and walked into a side bay; Mr Norrell, as if enchanted, followed him.

“Here,” said the younger man, holding out the book that he had taken from the shelf. “This is a spell that allows a man to see his enemy and what he is doing with a mirror; can you not perform that? It seems very simple.”

Mr Norrell looked from the book to Childermass - then to the rest of the party - and trembled.

“Do magic, sir” said Childermass bending down so that his lips were very close to the other’s ear. “I shall not tell, I promise. But give me some hope – I thought that I should find it at Hurtfew after what I have seen. Do you tell me honestly that you have read of such things and not attempted them? If you have not, then what good has your reading done you?”

“The study of theoretical magic is a very worthy...” began Mr Norrell.

“I can hear that trammel at the Society. Be a magician sir and not a gentleman. Or buy yourself a yellow curtain; you are no less a fraud than the street conjuror who boasts that he can do magic if you can perform it but say that you cannot.”

He paused as if hoping that this rebuke would force some action from the other. But Mr Norrell was silent, although his mouth opened for a moment as if to speak. Childermass stepped back, dropt the book and walked away without another word.

The two magicians had thought themselves to be unobserved; but Mr Drawlight’s long experience of London ballrooms had allowed him to take up a stance where he had a perfect view of every corner of the library. He nudged Mr Lascelles so that he too might see the taller and lesser figures bent together so closely.

“He is the very picture of the wild outlaw who stalks the moors calling for his lady love, is he not?” said Mr Drawlight, indicating Childermass. “Of course, they always turn out to be a nobleman stolen in infancy in the last chapter. I wonder that Mr Norrell allows him to be so familiar. Perhaps you have another rival, Henry.”

“He is a thief who has somehow got in with his betters – or so you told me,” said Mr Lascelles. “There, see, Norrell has dismissed him as the rogue that he is.”

It was Christopher Drawlight’s boast that he could read a gentleman or a lady’s heart from the turn of a shoulder or the flutter of a finger; and the slow dropping of Mr Norrell’s head after Childermass had left him had not escaped his notice. But he would gain nothing by talking further of it, so he dismissed the thought and addressed the company.

Now he said, clapping his hands, they were to leave the library and walk in the grounds a little to refresh their spirits and then it would be time for dinner. Could they not simply remain in the Abbey said old Mr Greyshippe who had enjoyed all the fresh air and exercise that he required in eighty years of life?

No, for then they would not receive the full effect of Mr Drawlight’s scheme of lighting for the dining room; it was necessary that they pass from daylight into darkness to appreciate it. Since no one present felt qualified to argue the matter the company left the house and went to walk by the River Hurt that ran so conveniently nearby.

Mr Norrell took care to point out the particular beauties of the Abbey and its gardens to Mr Segundus and Mr Segundus was pleased to admire them. Was there anything that his companion thought might improve the estate, asked Mr Norrell?

“I am sure that Mr Segundus will say that its only fault is that it is perhaps a little large for a single gentleman to reside in,” said Mr Lascelles who walked a few paces behind them. Mr Segundus tried in vain to find words to deny this and to pay the Abbey a compliment in one; but the next moment the conversation ended.

They had reached the banks of the Hurt and as Mr Segundus stood near the small bridge that ran over it he suddenly fell down in a faint. Lucas was called for and together with Childermass carried him into the house to be laid on the sofa in the sitting room. There he soon revived with the help of some water and smelling salts.

“I am sorry; I had for a moment a feeling that I was standing on the edge of a great abyss that I could not see the bottom of,” he said by way of explanation. He added that it was a weakness of his that had occurred before when he was younger; once on Salisbury Plain near the ancient monument that Geoffrey of Monmouth had said was built by Merlin and once when he was walking on Offa’s Dyke. Both Mr Norrell and Childermass were struck by his comments, it seemed and would have pressed him further had Mr Drawlight not had the dinner bell rung at that exact moment.

Mr Norrell did not wish to leave Mr Segundus on the sofa alone but Mr Lascelles told him to attend to his duties as host and assured him that he would be happy to escort his friend to the table in a few minutes. When the other guests, all excepting Childermass, had gone, he lent over the couch and said;

“A fainting fit and then some _sal volatile_ is a very charming method for bringing a fine glow to the complexion; you might have remembered tho’ that you are to appear by candlelight and that suits a pale countenance better. But perhaps Mr Norrell will not care.”

Childermass took a pace towards the sofa – Mr Segundus nodded to him and said “I do not require your help, sir.” Mr Lascelles smiled and left the sitting room with no more acknowledgements to Childermass than he had shewed him the rest of the afternoon.

“Do not attend to that fellow, he has some game of his own,” whispered Childermass. There was confusion at the dining room door, Mr Drawlight having by mistake told Lucas that Childermass was to be entertained in the kitchen. Mr Segundus assured the footman that if Childermass was to dine with the servants then so would he and they were both admitted forthwith.

Mr Drawlight’s requested admiration for his table meant that the other guests were not yet seated. “Very fine, sir,” said Dr Foxcastle although of course he had expected nothing less for such a guest as he. It was in truth a display of candles, fruit and silver that would not have disgraced a Wimpole Street dinner. Mr Drawlight bowed to him with genuine gratitude.

Dr Foxcastle and Mr Norrell each took a table end; Mr Segundus and Mr Lascelles were placed on either side of the latter. Childermass sat down immediately in the seat between Mr Segundus and Mr Honeyfoot; it had been meant for Mr Drawlight but that gentlemen had now to send for a chair and join the society of magicians at the other end of the table.

“We are lucky that you found your way back to us Childermass; we should have been thirteen without you,” said Mr Honeyfoot.

“Well, we are still thirteen gentlemen, sir,” said Mr Lascelles.

Then the courses were brought in. Mr Drawlight had been pleased to find that Mr Norrell’s cook and other servants were trained to a London level; so first there was _le potage printannier_ and _les tranches de cabilleau,_ then fowl _la Montmorenci_ , then lamb chops _sauté_ and quails and hams and all the _ragouts a L’allamende_ and asparagus _en batonets_ and _pois a la Francoise_ and sherry and wine that anyone could wish for to go with them. To finish there were lemon sorbets and _les tartes au groiselles_ _rouge_.  All of this delighted the majority of the guests (and Mr Drawlight which was of course of more importance).

Mr Lascelles complimented every item – the wines were as rare as the cellar at Boodles, the entrees as good as at White’s. But he saw that Mr Segundus had taken very little of each dish; perhaps the food was not fine enough for his tastes – or was the company too numerous? Had Mr Segundus ever eaten the oysters at Rules in Covent Garden? He had not? Mr Lascelles could assure him that Rules was the finest place in the world for two gentlemen to dine of an evening _a deux_ ; perhaps Mr Segundus could persuade Mr Norrell to take him there on some occasion?

“Mrs Honeyfoot is very fond of the cockles at Whitby Bay,” said Mr Honeyfoot to help the conversation.

Mr Segundus was now so bewildered and so anxious not to appear to be presumptuous of Mr Norrell’s friendship that he said not a thing in reply and refused the remaining courses, to his host’s evident disappointment (although Mr Norrell himself had merely nibbled on the bread and vegetables until the tart and soufflé were brought in) . Childermass meanwhile ate heartily of every dish and observed Mr Lascelles as if he intended to make a light supper of that gentleman too.

 The rest of the company were all quiet murmurs of pleasure, Mr Drawlight having given up the battle to discuss London fashions in cravats with the Yorkshire magicians. Lucas at last brought in the port and madeira and the talk at the far end of the table turned to old acquaintances of Dr Foxcastle, then old schoolfellows of Mr Honeyfoot, then old sweethearts of the company (all of these personages becoming somewhat muddled together). Mr Drawlight contented himself with listening to the conversation, such as it was, with a close-lipped smile.

Mr Lascelles meanwhile laid down his glass of port and said:

“Mr Norrell, I have been thinking over our discussion of the Raven King; it is extraordinary to me that although he abandoned his kingdom five hundred years ago the common northern folk still wait for his return. One does not appreciate how his legend lingers in the south.”

“Three hundred and fifty years,” said Mr Norrell, roused from his contemplation of Mr Segundus’s bowed head by the opportunity to correct another’s mistake.

“And yet there have been no attempts to call him back from Hell or wherever it is he is supposed to have been hiding?”

“John Uskglass is not hiding,” said Childermass, putting down his own glass.

“Summoning a king is not the easy business that you suppose, Mr Lascelles,” added Mr Norrell with a glance to Lucas and the other footmen around the room.

“Perhaps it is best that like King Arthur he remains in the history books. We could not very well have him riding a manticore at York Races or strolling arm in arm with Merlin down Pall Mall with ivy leaves in his hair.”

“Oh, he would be the bore at every party within a week with his conjuror’s tricks and potions,” said Mr Drawlight, springing into conversational life. “Of course, it would make the world of difference if he arrived in a set of modern, tailored magician’s robes, in a good bright silk. If Mr Childermass cared to stand up I could demonstrate with one of the curtains.”

Unfortunately Mr Childermass did not care to do that. Instead he fixed a gaze like a flint on Mr Lascelles and said:

“If the Raven King has not returned then it is because we have not called him back as we are meant to **.** There are trees still standing that would recognise and greet him. But where is the magician who could do the same? I would walk over the moors from Chop Gate to Ravenscar barefoot to find him – or to find the magician who could lead me to him.”

“Perhaps he would wish to be summoned back by gentlemen and not peasants,” said Mr Lascelles, meeting Childermass’s eye for the first time that evening.

“Please speak no more of this, sir,” said Mr Norrell in a low voice.

“Yes, leave John Uskglass where he has gone,” cried Dr Foxcastle and toasted the same to nods of agreement from those seated by him.

“We were all so far below the King in the North that it did not matter to him whether we were poor folk or lords,” said Childermass. “But we are all his children still.”

Mr Lascelles spoke on as if there had been no intervention.

“I do not suggest that you should be gavotting around a cauldron on the lawn outside, sir, to call your king home. But have you not considered, Mr Norrell, that perhaps a more scholarly approach would work? Suppose some gentlemen magicians such as those who are gathered here tonight were to ask His Majesty to return? Or perhaps some school or academy should be founded to study the question of why he left and took magic with him? Your own library would make a most suitable headquarters for the enterprise would it not?”

“Have you some thoughts Mr Segundus?” he added when Mr Norrell did not reply. “Forgive me, but I should have taken you for a schoolmaster, were you not a guest here tonight. I could well imagine you plying an inky quill when you were not engaged in whatever other little duties Mr Norrell might require of you.”

“I may speak for him; Mr Segundus knows better than to venture down such a dangerous path,” said Mr Norrell.

“I am sure that Mr Segundus’s opinion on the matter will be whatever you require it to be sir,” said Mr Lascelles.

“My opinion has been for some time that an academy of magic would be a most useful thing - and that I should be very happy to be a member of it,” said Mr Segundus, raising his head at last.

Childermass smiled but Mr Norrell frowned. “I thought that I had made my feelings on such matters quite plain over the past fortnight,” he said. “The Raven King is to be forgotten. If you had told me of this foolish daydream of a school then I should have told you to forget that too. Nothing could be more reckless than to allow discussion and speculation about magic in such a way – it is bad enough that I have to endure a Magical Society on my doorstep without a Magical School as well.”

(“And your very good health too, Mr Norrell,” said Dr Foxcastle under his breath before tucking a bottle of Madeira in his pocket.)

“You have no understanding of what mischief you might summon up were you to proceed with this scheme,” continued Mr Norrell. “But understand me here and now; you do not have my permission and it would not be allowed.”

“I believe that in England one is generally allowed to open a school, sir – educating one’s fellows is a duty for a learned man; and I cannot imagine the circumstances where I would be required to ask for _your_ permission to do anything,” said Mr Segundus.

Mr Norrell stared at him for some moments then rose from his place and left the room without further reply. The company, realising that some signal had been given, stood up in haste to leave.

“I think that you can answer Dr Foxcastle now as to whether you are to be Master of Hurtfew, Mr Segundus,” said Childermass as they waited for Mr Honeyfoot’s carriage to be brought to the door of the house.

“Yes – and I wish with all my heart that it had happened in some other way. I cannot apologise enough sir that all your schemes to make me happy have ended like this,” said Mr Segundus to Mr Honeyfoot. “As for Mr Norrell I could not endure to be addressed so and it is clear that we could never be married but I still feel that I have misled him in some way.”

“You have nothing to reproach yourself for,” said Mr Honeyfoot. “I trespassed on your good nature with my enthusiasm and if Mr Norrell has been deceived it was with no intent on your part. Alas, matchmaking is not the easy business that I supposed it to be and as for the library I think that I may have made matters worse!” Childermass clapped his shoulder by way of consolation.

Dr Foxcastle paused on the steps of his own carriage to address them. “Be careful that you do not crease that suit,” he said to Mr Segundus. “It was bought for you for a particular purpose and since you have failed in it entirely, it can go back to the tailors on Monday. I could have made a better fist of the business myself. As for you,” – here he pointed to Childermass – “consider yourself no longer welcome at the York Society; you have worked to undermine this plan from the beginning and now we shall never see that library again. We want nothing more from you or your stolen books.”

Childermass indicated with a bow that he was happy to accept this judgement. “It will not concern me if I never sit and hear you argue over how many toes a wyvern has ever again. I am for practical magic now.”

“I am sorry for that as well,” said Mr Segundus as they sat down in Mr Honeyfoot’s carriage. “But what will you do for a living now?”

“First, give me your hand,” said Childermass with a smile. The other did so; before he could withdraw it Childermass had taken a small knife from his pocket and made several long slits in his coat sleeve; so delicately that Mr Segundus quite unharmed.

“There; Mrs Honeyfoot can patch that well enough for you to wear it; but the tailor will not take it back, and so you still have a decent suit,” he said. “As for what I shall do, I mean to take up schoolmastering. I have a little experience in the trade as I was an usher once and I understand that there is to be a new academy here in York very soon.”

“Then you know more than me,” said Mr Segundus. “How could such an establishment be financed and where could it be housed? Who would supply it with books?”

“Tomorrow morning I shall meet you at High-Petergate, with Mr Honeyfoot’s permission, and give you my answer to all such questions. I have been a fool, Mr Segundus; I thought that I might find a practical magician at Hurtfew and then a way to the Raven King. But now I see that the man who lives here is a coward and a miser who will never share his wealth with others or spend it himself. Forget Gilbert Norrell and his library; I have done so already. We shall have books of magic of our own where they are needed and for the rest we shall be our own masters. We shall sleep out in the forest all night if we wish to and learn magic that way – even Mr Honeyfoot, if Mrs Honeyfoot will spare him!”

Mr Honeyfoot declared himself part of Childermass’s band of magico-outlaws very readily and said that Mrs Honeyfoot far from objecting might want to join them. Then he hammered on the roof of the coach so that Waters might pull away. Only Mr Segundus remained a little melancholy.

The master of Hurtfew had come to his front door; to make sure that his guests had left rather than to wish them well on their travels it seemed. He was not alone; Mr Drawlight and Mr Lascelles guarded him one on either side. Mr Segundus observed the three figures for a moment. Then the door to Hurtfew was closed.

It did not please him to think that this was to be perhaps his final sight of the gentleman whom he could never accept as a husband but whom he still felt that he was in some way abandoning . He pondered on this all the way back to York and would not be cheered by his companions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mr Drawlight's menu is freely adapted from an 1815 menu to be found at The Beau Monde Blog, provided by Susanna Ives.
> 
> http://thebeaumonde.com/regency-menu-for-four-by-susanna-ives/


	6. Chapter 6

The next morning, being a Saturday, Childermass sat down at the parlour table in High-Petergate with Mr Honeyfoot and Mr Segundus to discuss the latter’s scheme for an academy of magic. It was, said Mr Segundus, to be a grouping of likeminded scholars who would consider the questions of where English magic had gone to and how it could be brought back. But it would look for practical means to accomplish this, not stale debates or antiquarianism.

Of course the scholars would need something to live on – so they would also teach magic with a view to cultivating a new generation of magical thinkers. He did not mean children. The instruction that he intended to give was far beyond _A Child’s History of the Raven King_ , a fine volume though that was. Apart from that he would take whoever wished to come – lady or gentleman – without any consideration of rank and for the lowest possible fee. Mr Segundus had often thought that there was a great deal of magical potential in England that was not being exploited. He would like to expose these deposits; much as the country’s new industrial lords mined coal. Perhaps Mrs Honeyfoot could be persuaded to chaperone where necessary? Mr Honeyfoot was sure that she could, even if the woods were involved.

And where was this academy to be sited asked Childermass? He assumed that they were not going to build it. And how were the scholars to live while they waited for pupils to teach? Mr Segundus readily confessed that he had no notion.

Then it was fortunate, said Childermass, that he had already pondered these questions himself. About twenty miles outside of York there was a building which he happened to think would make an excellent school – near to the road but still private - open to the green woods and breezes but sound and watertight. In addition its owner had not been able to let it for some time and would take a low rent. Would Mr Honeyfoot and Mr Segundus come and see it that afternoon? They would. As for funds, he had some small savings laid aside himself and if these were united with Mr Segundus’s resources then he was sure that with frugality they could last long enough to get paying pupils and to meet the first costs.

The two gentlemen magicians protested at this a little but since Childermass declared that his mind would not alter, they agreed that he should help to finance the scheme. Mr Honeyfoot however insisted on putting in as large a contribution as the coming wedding and two unmarried daughters allowed.

Later that day Waters drove them out to see the building and to meet its owner, a Mr Yoward. Why was the property empty? It was not large enough for a gentleman’s house and did not have enough land for a farmer, Mr Yoward explained; it had been a burden to his family for many years.

His only tenant two years before had been a _southern_ gentleman, he said, looking at Childermass and Mr Honeyfoot. He had been a poet who had come north to commune with the sublime spirits of wild nature or some such; first he had tried to find a humble shelter in the Lake District but unfortunately all the distant crags and misty valleys there were largely occupied by Mr Wordsworth’s followers. So he had come to Yorkshire which was close enough and signed an agreement to take the house, the first month being _gratis_.

Then scarcely a week later he had come running down to Mr Yoward’s own home one morning, babbling about blue candle flames and walking shadows and rooms that were twice the size at midnight that they were at noon and a great deal of other nonsense that Mr Yoward would have thought that a poet would have paid additional sums to see. But he had had not a penny of rent from the gentleman who had gone straight back to Winchester and he had had all the trouble of bringing back the second best table and the bed that he had loaned him down a steep track on a cart. He only hoped that he was not going to hear any such fairy tales from Childermass and Mr Honeyfoot, whom he could tell were _northern_ gentlemen. Here he looked sideways at Mr Segundus. Childermass assured him that Mr Segundus, despite his appearance, was not a poet and had lived long enough in the north to be quite sensible.

The property had one great room below with the normal domestic offices and a number of small ones above which could be bedrooms and studies; and also a great many interesting carvings of birds and animals about it – ravens and owls and cats and so on - both inside and out. There was also a small garden, mostly covered by brambles. Mr Yoward thought that it had once been attached to Hurtfew Abbey – the original foundation that was, not the modern house. But Mr Norrell had no claim over it said Childermass? Oh no, said Mr Yoward – Mr Norrell was his neighbour of course but he owned it outright himself.

The three magicians stood a little way away to discuss matters: were they all agreed that this was the place for them? Yes, said Mr Segundus whose spirits had been greatly revived by the prospect. As for Mr Honeyfoot, Childermass had proved his superior wisdom by predicting that the marriage scheme would not work, he said; from now on he would take his advice without question.

They shook hands with Mr Yoward immediately and that gentleman was pleased to allow them a year’s lease of Heartsease House (for that was its name), provided that they paid him the annual rent immediately. His experience with the poet had made him a little wary of allowing his tenants time to settle. As for how they were to use it, provided that it did not disturb his sheep he would not concern himself. There was only a moment’s hesitation and then the money was handed over with no more formalities – for we do not need lawyers and contracts between four honest men said Mr Yoward.

“Endless rooms and walking shadows -I wonder if we are to be the only tenants of Heartsease?” said Mr Segundus as they rode back to York.

“So much the better if we are not; that is why I selected the property in the first place. I saw it at night when I happened to have some business in the area and thought immediately that it had half a foot in Faerie. Forgive me Mr Segundus but it also occurred to me that you might have a sensibility for such things from your fainting and that may also be of great use to us in our explorations,” said Childermass. “Hurtfew Abbey was built by the Raven King after all, and I am not surprised that this building is connected to it.”

“But can the stories be true?”

“We shall find out together shall we not? Perhaps a walking shadow will not seem so strange if you see it with your own eyes. We should not slander the poet.”

Mr Segundus gave him a look as if to say that he perceived now that he had a great deal more to learn from Childermass.

The evening was spent very pleasantly in drawing up a curriculum and lists of books for Childermass to find and in drafting an advertisement for the York Chronicle to appear on Tuesday as follows.

_“An Appeal to the Friends of English Magic”_

_Three gentlemen_ (Childermass had balked a little at this) _Late of the Learned Society of York Magicians_ (we will be late when Dr Foxcastle reads this, said Mr Honeyfoot) _having determined that the Restoration of English Magic shall be their entire endeavour request that any scholar wishing to join their enterprise at Heartsease House in the county of Yorkshire in a serious spirit should apply in writing to Mr John Segundus at Lady- Peckitt’s yard_ (et cetera et cetera) _._

_The advertisers wish to make it plain that they do not intend to discriminate amongst their correspondents by rank or sex._

_Also – any genuine pupil of English Magic, being of twenty one years or more, may apply to study the same for a modest fee._

The notice was illustrated by a drawing of a Raven produced by Jane which did not survive the printing in any very recognisable shape.

What then of Mr Norrell? For two days after the dinner he kept to his library, although the writing paper that he placed on his desk in the morning stayed blank until the evening. After a very meagre dinner he went to the sitting room to listen to the long case clock. Mr Lascelles and Mr Drawlight, who had waited faithfully for him outside the library all day, joined him there. First one and then the other would speak in low soothing tones of the wrongs that Mr Norrell had suffered.

How sad it was that a man so respectable and wise as Mr Norrell should have been humiliated in such a fashion and at dinner in his own house. Did Mr Norrell not consider the coincidence of so vulgarly appealing a young man being at the Assembly reading room on the one night of the year when he was sure to be in York? Perhaps the whole thing had been a cruel jape to seize Mr Norrell’s books and money by the society. Was it not easy – painfully easy – to imagine the three of them – Foxcastle, Honeyfoot, Segundus – all laughing together by candlelight in some warm room over the trick that they meant to play on the Master of Hurtfew? How fortunate that Mr Lascelles’s innocent questionings had drawn the full extent of the scheme out of them before Mr Norrell had committed himself in some way!

Mr Honeyfoot and Mr Segundus would not laugh at him said Mr Norrell.

Mr Drawlight would sorrowfully shake his head at this and Mr Lascelles lay a hand very gently on Mr Norrell’s own before Mr Norrell flinched and withdrew it.

By Sunday evening his mind had returned to a kind of dull tranquillity and he was able to review events with some detachment. Speaking to Mr Segundus and being in his company in the previous fortnight had made him what he supposed was happy. He had therefore thought it necessary that Mr Segundus be his companion on a permanent basis. This, he had concluded, meant marriage.

He had rather skipped over the practicalities of how the alliance was to be achieved; instead he had lost himself in the picture of Mr Segundus seated in the library at Hurtfew always pleased to talk of (or rather to listen to) whatever subject his husband might introduce (Childermass also being present in some capacity on these occasions, albeit rather more argumentative than a figment of Mr Norrell’s imagination should have been).

Indeed when Mr Norrell spoke to Mr Segundus so harshly at dinner it was because he had almost forgotten that no proposal had been made or accepted. But since the other had made it clear that any such offer would be refused, the picture was fading. It was not the first time that Mr Norrell had lost something that he had longed for by snatching at it too eagerly; now he expected rapidly to forget the thing itself as well as the desire. As for the rest of what had been said to him two days ago, those words were still too painful for his mind to acknowledge.

He told himself that the matter was closed and looked to return to his previous solitude and study. And yet, the library seemed nothing more than an empty room even when he was in it and for the first time since he was a child he perceived that he was lonely.

By Monday he had roused himself enough to walk around the garden in the afternoon and to ask his footman why Mr Lascelles and Mr Drawlight were still at the Abbey. Lucas could have a carriage prepared to carry them back to York the next day (Mr Lascelles having taken great pleasure in sending away Hardgrave on the Friday evening unpaid). Lucas passed the order to Davey in Mr Lascelles’s hearing and Tuesday morning might have seen the two London gentlemen removed, much to the servants’ pleasure, when Mr Drawlight ventured into the sitting room while Mr Norrell was at breakfast, with that day’s York Chronicle in his hand.

He displayed it to Mr Norrell with a sorrowful smile so that the master of Hurtfew might read Mr Segundus’s advertisement.

“But this cannot be,” said Mr Norrell, rising to his feet. “A school was bad enough but a school at Heartsease? And with Mr Segundus present? He has read Holgarth & Pickle -   I know that he will attempt to summon a fairy and Childermass will help him! No, it cannot be allowed. But how am I to prevent it?”

He wrung his hands and gazed pitifully at Mr Drawlight and Mr Lascelles, who had followed Mr Drawlight in, quite forgetting that he had meant to lock himself in the library at eleven so that Davey and Lucas might escort them out.

“A fairy indeed? I can only wonder at the wickedness and cruelty that they show,” said Mr Lascelles, suppressing a smile. “This building – Heartsease – it is near here? That seems an extra insult. The owner? A Mr Yoward – and he is your tenant? Alas, his own man. But he is your neighbour?”

Mr Norrell, at Mr Lascelles’s request, had the deeds and maps of his own lands brought out of the chest where they were kept. Mr Lascelles peered and nodded over them spread out over the breakfast table as if he were Napoleon himself before Marengo, and asked some questions about clauses and rights and rents and so on.

“I think that I see some way of stopping this venture on Mr Yoward’s land at least,” he said at last.

Mr Norrell brightened a little at this and sat down.

“But what will prevent them from simply taking their money and finding another place to work their mischief?” said Mr Drawlight, shaking his head.

Mr Norrell stood up again and looked to Mr Lascelles for an answer.

“Indeed; all their bolt holes must be blocked up so to speak,” mused that gentleman. He turned to his host.

Would Mr Norrell allow Mr Lascelles to take his carriage and ride over to Mr Yoward? He was sure that he could settle the matter if he were allowed to say that he acted with Mr Norrell’s authority. Mr Norrell was now so concerned that he agreed instantly and did not even protest when Mr Drawlight joined him at the breakfast table and poured himself a cup of chocolate.

On the Wednesday Mr Segundus received several letters at his lodgings in Lady- Peckitt’s yard. This was very unusual and he perceived at once that they must be responses to the advertisement. Rather than open them himself he went to Mr Honeyfoot’s house where he had already agreed to meet his fellow magicians so that they might read them together.

The first was from a respectable retired mechanic in Rotherham who wished to become a pupil. The second came from a lady of independent means in Hartlepool who intended to join their enterprise as a scholar and to bring with her a large library of handwritten folklore inherited from a grandmother. The third was from a Miss Gray of Whitby; her guardians had been persuaded that she be allowed to study magic in York and she wished to begin as soon as possible.

The fourth letter however had been scribbled in haste by Mr Yoward on the back of an old receipt. It said in short that he was no longer able to lease Heartsease to the magicians and would be obliged if they would not ask him for any further explanation.

Of course all three immediately made for Mr Yoward’s farm in Mr Honeyfoot’s carriage. Mr Segundus’s pleas and Childermass’s dark looks between them persuaded the farmer to open the door and speak to them.

He had, said Mr Yoward, received a visit from Mr Norrell’s new agent yesterday – a southern gentleman from his manner of speaking. This person had told Mr Yoward that Mr Norrell had been looking at the deeds to his lands (as a wealthy man does of an evening) and had come to the conclusion that Heartsease House was part of his own Hurtfew Estate, bearing as it did a carving of a raven with a crown over its door. The new agent had therefore come over to collect the deeds. Of course if Mr Yoward disagreed, he was welcome to pay a lawyer his hard earned guineas to argue his case but he should bear in mind that this was likely to result in Mr Norrell discovering that several of Mr Yoward’s fields also belonged to Hurtfew and putting his own attorney to work; and Mr Norrell’s guineas would last far longer than Mr Yoward’s.

Mr Yoward had appreciated the force of this argument and the deeds to Heartsease and the rent that the three friends had paid for it had gone away with the agent back to Hurtfew.

Then we will have our money back said Childermass. They could take that up with Mr Norrell, said Mr Yoward; he was their landlord now. But the southern gentleman had told him that his neighbour did not care to have a pack of mischief makers from York living so close to him. Besides from what the new agent had told him, what they had planned to do at Heartsease was likely to have disturbed his sheep. So he wanted nothing more to do with them.

Thus the scheme, which had taken all of Mr Segundus’s and Childermass’s resources, was in ruins before it began.

The reactions of the three magicians can be imagined. Childermass raged for some time – Did Norrell hope to force some reconciliation with Mr Segundus? How had Lascelles such influence on him? Mr Segundus was pale and silent. The ending of the school meant not only the loss of a long-cherished dream but any possibility of remaining an independent scholar for the time being. He now had no savings and must find an occupation. Mr Honeyfoot would have taken him in in an instant but both gentlemen knew that he would not impose himself on the household. Mr Honeyfoot himself was almost in tears to think that his innocent plan of a month ago had lead to this.

In truth Mr Lascelles had had only the haziest idea of what he was to say to Mr Yoward as he rode over to his farm. But he had applied a principle that had served him well; a man should never make his rich neighbour angry. He had only to remind Mr Yoward of that to acquire the house. Once he had heard of the annual rent paid he had seen how he could prevent any other school being founded, guessing correctly that the magicians would not have the ready money to pay a second landlord.

The result was that Mr Lascelles went home with the rent (which he kept for his own use) and the deeds to Heartsease and could assure Mr Norrell that there would be no school. Mr Norrell was entirely pleased to have the business behind him and so asked for no further particulars. He retired to the library for the rest of the day; Mr Lascelles demanded sherry-wine from Lucas and sent the carriage and Davey back to the stables with a look.

The next morning, being Thursday, Miss Caroline Norton came to High-Petergate. She had received a letter from her Aunt Charlotte replying to her enquiries about Mr Lascelles and wished to report the contents to Miss Isabella. Once Isabella had read it they took it to Mr Honeyfoot who was seated in his study with Mr Segundus and Childermass sighing over the letters that were still arriving in answer to their notice.

Aunt Charlotte Norton was a woman of broad mind, friendships and tastes, who admired her niece’s character and had no notions of protecting her from indelicate matters; and the details of her account are as follows.

In the June of 180- Mr Lascelles had found himself in Dorset visiting a dying aunt. The aunt was very ugly but the Chinese porcelain that she owned was very beautiful and her nephew was determined to carry it back to London after the funeral.

He had cast about for some amusement amongst the sheep and country squires and had found it in the form of a young gentleman, the ward of the local clergyman, who was himself about to take holy orders. By the beginning of July, Mr FitzGeorge (for that was his name) had quite forgotten his vocation. He was convinced that he was to meet the London season as the affianced of Mr Henry Lascelles and had consented to give his betrothed all the liberties that a husband might enjoy.

Alas he had not understood that he was merely the object of a wager between Mr Lascelles and Mr Drawlight which Mr Lascelles had won handsomely and when the latter left Dorset only the porcelain went with him. Mr FitzGeorge had forgotten himself to such a degree that he had followed Mr Lascelles to London and had attempted to enter his house and to plead with him on several occasions, even beating on the windows and crying in the street. At last when he understood that he had been discarded he left in despair for Hell or The Peninsular, his family having in the meantime disowned him as a rake.

Mr Lascelles found the whole episode most amusing, even consenting to Mr Drawlight writing it up with some intimate details and having it published for private circulation. Neither his conscience nor his heart was the slightest affected by Mr FitzGeorge’s downfall.

But alas Mr Lascelles in his turn had misunderstood his place in this drama. The young man was not simply the clergyman’s ward; he was the natural son of A Great Personage. At the time that he was born, the Great Personage, whom we shall call His Grace, was well supplied with legitimate offspring and he was happy to leave Mr FitzGeorge to be brought up by other persons, all of whom, like Mr FitzGeorge himself, were quite unaware of his parentage.

However, some eighteen years later, an opportunity arose for His Grace to secure ownership of a great fortune and estate for his family, his appetite for ready money, as always, being pressing. All that was needed was for him to supply a husband to marry the heiress of the estate before she reached twenty. His legitimate sons had unfortunately been made useless by drink, dissipation and living wives. But His Grace happily remembered that he had mislaid a son in Dorset and sent for him to be acknowledged and married post haste. Then he discovered that the young man was the hero of Mr Drawlight’s _novella_ and had fled no one knew where. The heiress married another and His Grace looked around for someone to blame and for someone to fill his empty coffers. The person to do both, he soon divined, was Mr Lascelles.

Mr Lascelles was a very wealthy man and this had protected him from any censure in the past for similar adventures. But now that he had angered His Grace he was overmatched. Other stories that Mr Drawlight had not been encouraged to write now circulated in Society. His invitations, both given and received, dried up like the Nile in winter. He found himself beset by expensive lawsuits and people who had laughed with the richer Mr Lascelles now discovered that they were scandalised by the poorer.

It was finally explained to him whom he had offended and the price that he was to pay for the persecution to cease. This was that a substantial part of Mr Lascelles’s own fortune was to find its way to His Grace’s representatives and that Mr Lascelles was to leave London until he could return on own resources. Hence, his visit to York - Mr Drawlight as ever accompanying him like a shadow – and his friendship with Mr Norrell.

“Now we understand what his business is at Hurtfew,” said Mr Honeyfoot. “A rich marriage will restore him. But what are we to do about it?”

Many would say that they should do nothing and leave Mr Norrell to shift for himself, said Childermass. But he supposed that Mr Segundus would argue that he could not be abandoned to the mercies of Mr Lascelles and that Mr Honeyfoot would plead that they should not allow the library at Hurtfew to be sold to pay some London thief’s debts - the both of them being far too soft hearted for this world. As for himself, he would help to save Mr Norrell from his own folly, so that he might have the pleasure of telling him that he was a fool if they ever met again.

“We may perhaps persuade him that we are to be trusted over the academy if we do him this service,” said Mr Honeyfoot.

“Or we may find that he is as scornful of us as ever,” said Childermass. “Or that he will not understand our meaning. Tell him that his books are in danger; that alone will rouse him.”

“For my part I would warn him even if it completed my ruin, which I fear is very close,” said Mr Segundus quietly. This was the last word on the subject for his friends.

But how was he to be warned? A letter might easily be intercepted. Mr Honeyfoot remembered then that Mr Norrell would be at the York Society on the next day to see its library. Since any approach from his former friends might well be scorned, it was agreed that Miss Norton would attempt to speak to him.

Mr Norrell came to York on the Friday as arranged, having scorned Mr Drawlight’s warning that his quarrel with Mr Segundus was being openly gossiped about in the streets. His two London friends insisted on accompanying him however and Mr Norrell was too anxious at the prospect of examining another man’s library to protest.

Dr Foxcastle greeted their carriage outside the Old Starre Inn but was almost immediately drawn off by the sight of Childermass lounging in a doorway on the opposite side of the street with a copy of the York Chronicle in a manner that suggested insolence and pride (Mr Segundus being stood blushing by his side). As Mr Norrell and his companions went upstairs, Mr Honeyfoot escorted Miss Norton after them to the upper floor meeting room and waited for her on the stairs.

Miss Caroline had hoped to converse with Mr Norrell alone but one glance at Mr Lascelles seated in Dr Foxcastle’s chair with Mr Drawlight at his elbow made it plain that she would have to speak before him.

Mr Norrell meanwhile was looking over the Society’s volumes, his mood brightening as he saw that the collection could not compare in any way with his own library. There were a few exceptions (all of which had been provided by Childermass). These he took especial note of in a little book that he kept in his pocket. Miss Norton waited until he had reached the end of the second shelf before speaking.

“Mr Norrell,” she began with a nod, “my father I know would wish me to greet you. I am sorry not to have spoken to you at Mr Honeyfoot’s this past week. You seemed so much amongst friends there.”

“It is so easy to be mistaken as to who one’s true friends are,” said Mr Drawlight with a sigh.

Miss Norton gave him no acknowledgment. Mr Norrell started, then muttered her name with a bow and turned back to the shelves.

“Mr Norrell is on important business, Miss Norton,” said Mr Lascelles. “Perhaps you have bonnet ribbons or printed muslins to concern you?”

“It is as well that I know you Mr Lascelles – know of you by reputation I should say, since we have never been formally introduced – or such a familiar address might seem rude,” said Miss Norton fixing her gaze on him. “It is strange that we have never spoken before though. I have been in London several times this year. Should I not have seen you at Lady Bessborough’s? Should my father not have encountered you at White’s? Indeed I am a little hurt that you have not called on my family now that you are removed to York. May I know what has brought you so far North? I believe that you were famous for declaring that everything in England above Oxford could be cut away without loss. Why try your fortunes here?”

“I would not call at a house where a wedding – even a provincial one - is being prepared without an invitation, Madam.”

“Then I must apologise that we have not issued you with one; but then again the officiant is to be an old man. I understand that your preference for a clergyman, Mr Lascelles, is that he be young.”

This was a sharper hit than Mr Lascelles had expected from a young lady. He sat up a little and began to say that he had no more preference in the vintage of his clergy than Sir Robert her father discriminated between vintages of port, which was fortunate, given the quantities that his parliamentary duties apparently obliged him to consume.

But Mr Norrell had finished his examination of the books, and was not attending to the conversation. He walked towards the door with Mr Drawlight close behind and Mr Lascelles hastened to follow them. Miss Caroline saw that she had almost missed her chance by being too subtle and called out to him;

“Mr Norrell! This gentleman is not your friend. Every respectable door is closed to him and neither your uncle nor your mother would wish you to receive him at Hurtfew.”

However Mr Norrell was already halfway out of the door and only gave her the briefest acknowledgement; Mr Lascelles followed him out with an ironic bow.

“I have failed,” said Caroline to Mr Honeyfoot as he took her hand and patted it.

Mr Lascelles seemed very cool as he travelled back to Hurtfew; only Mr Drawlight, from long practice, noticed the tightening of his hands as they rested on his knees. Within he was a flurry of doubts. What had Mr Norrell understood or even noticed of Miss Caroline’s words? Suppose Mr Lascelles’s enemies were to succeed in giving him a full account of his guest’s Dorset dealings? He had no notion of how Mr Norrell might respond, the latter being so singularly different from the Christians that Mr Lascelles encountered in his native home of London.

When the carriage reached the Abbey he followed Mr Norrell to the door of the library.

“Sir,” he said “I must apologise for that _contretemps_ at the Society; of course you have too scholarly a mind to interest yourself with gossip but I hope that what that young person alleged has not cast any shadow on your opinion of my character.”

Since Mr Norrell had not troubled himself to form any opinion of Mr Lascelles’s character at all he could easily answer ‘no’. A great many people seemed to have taken it upon themselves to talk at him in recent weeks; he was thoroughly tired of it and meant to do his best to forget whatever they had told him, where indeed he had paid any attention to it in the first place. He said as much to Mr Lascelles.

Of course, said Mr Lascelles, a little relieved. A sensible gentleman would ignore the vast majority of whatever was spoken to him; the trick was to remember what one’s friends had said. He hoped that Mr Norrell would consider what true words he had heard over the past weeks and trust in them alone. Here he fixed his eyes very firmly on Mr Norrell’s face and stood a little closer to him; so close in fact that Mr Norrell straightaways walked through the door to the library and locked it.

He had noticed both Mr Segundus and Childermass in the street that morning although he had not acknowledged them. The sight of the former had given him a pang of regret for their past friendship but his phantom no longer troubled Mr Norrell when he sat in the library. As for Childermass, he had tried to think of him as little as possible in the past week but now he found his memory turning to their last conversation however much he wished that it would not.

To soothe his mind he sat down at his desk; he would, he determined, take up his pen and write a plain, sober account of everything that had occurred since the first Saturday of June. Then he would forget the entire business and return to his studies alone.

He began by listing the names of the books in the York Society’s library that he particularly coveted. Several were volumes that he had heard rumours of before. How had they escaped him?

“Surely it was Childermass who stole them from me,” he said aloud. He wrote ‘J. Childermass!’ next to the books.

“Did he not tell me that he could find me any volume for a certain sum?” he continued. “Yes, it was the night of the mayor’s dance.”

Before he could stop himself he had sketched a small figure in the margin of his notes with a pipe and the words ‘Twenty Guineas!’ in his mouth as if Childermass were a figure in one of Mr Gillray’s celebrated cartoons.

“And what else did he tell me?” he whispered. That was almost too painful to be remembered, certainly too painful be written clear in black ink on white paper. Instead he went again to the margins and drew first a mirror, then a dead flower and then a raven.

After that, his pen worked for several minutes as if of its own accord until Mr Norrell sat back and looked at what he had written.

It was not the plain, sober account that he had intended; in truth it was barely an account at all. A few brave sentences clung to the top of the page like a line of infantrymen with bayonets preparing to see off an assault but below all was anarchy.

Heartsease House stood in one margin and Hurtfew in the other with a road marked between them. In the middle was a bridge with a strange person standing upon it. A smaller figure walked from left to right with a book labelled ‘Holgarth & Pickle’ tucked underneath its arm. It seemed that this figure would reach the bridge and the person stood upon it sooner rather than later and what would happen to him then? Mr Norrell had drawn a thick black line across its path as if that would save him.

Lower down, another two persons labelled ‘S’ and ‘H’ sat at a table and cried “HA! HA!” This however had been struck through and “False!” written next to it.

Beside them a small forest of trees declared “Hail John Uskglass!” and a raven flew over them; two parallel paths were marked over a wild moor labelled ‘From Chop Gate to Ravenscar’, as if a pair of close companions was meant to walk that route together. At the very bottom of the page, “Fraud!” had been written several times.

“True or False?” said Mr Norrell himself. He closed his eyes and wrote “True” on the paper at last. Then he went to a close by shelf and took down a great many small notebooks, each marked with a different year. He remained in the library until midnight although he wrote no further that day.

The next morning Mr Drawlight was already at breakfast when he was surprised to hear a carriage being drawn up outside. When he went into the hallway he discovered that it was to take Mr Norrell into York.

Before he could speak Mr Norrell himself addressed him. Did Mr Drawlight consider that a gentleman should follow his own judgement or Society’s when contemplating an alliance? Mr Drawlight had made it his life’s work to follow Society’s whims without question but now he said that of course a person of Mr Norrell’s rank and fortune could expect Society to follow him.

Mr Norrell bowed and left without further comment. Mr Drawlight, a little bewildered, went to rouse Mr Lascelles who was lying in bed with his forearm flung over his eyes and to tell him that it seemed that he might still receive an interesting proposition and maybe very soon.

“Well, he has seen sense at last, and Miss Norton has been too clever,” said his friend, gazing with satisfaction at his own reflection in the glass on the wall. “This is Rustic Courtship I suppose; London opinions cannot harm me here.” Then he returned to sleep.

Mr Norrell’s carriage reached High-Petergate an hour later and Lucas was sent in to enquire as to who was at home. Only Childermass was there, looking through the letters in Mr Honeyfoot’s study; Lucas went back to his master with that news. A few moments later Mr Norrell got out of the coach and came into the house.

“What is he about?” said Childermass to himself, looking out of the window. “Can it be that he wishes to speak of Heartsease?”

Before he could think further, the door opened and Mr Norrell was shown into the room.

“I told your footman that Mr Segundus is not here,” said Childermass by way of greeting.

“Why should I want see Mr Segundus?” said the other. “It is you to whom I have come to speak. I thought that you would have expected my visit.”

He wishes to offer me some employment perhaps thought Childermass. Aloud he said, “What do we have to talk of, sir?”

“You are determined to be obtuse - very well,” said Mr Norrell. “I have come to say that I am prepared to make you the offer that you desire. If you had spoken to me more plainly then I should have been here sooner.”

Having no reply from Childermass, he continued. “I see that you are amazed; believe me your surprise could not be greater than my own. You have done very little to recommend yourself to me either as an acquaintance or more intimately; you have insulted my scholarship and purloined books that rightfully were mine by some underhand means. You have upbraided me in terms that should have seen you thrown from my house. Nevertheless I condescend to make the proposal and to bear whatever ridicule my neighbours may pile on me for it.” He put his hands behind his back and gazed a little around the room, confident, it seemed, of the answer that he was to receive.

“A proposal of what, Mr Norrell?” said Childermass at last, quite bewildered. “Do you think that I have asked to be your servant?”

“Of course I would not treat you as a servant, although it is true that you are of that class in Society. You have no rank, no fortune - but then again mine is sufficient for both of us. You will have the better side of the bargain of course but that is of no concern to me.”

“The better side of what bargain? Whatever you think that I have said to you sir I do not understand it. What proposal are you making to me?”

“Why, that we are to be married, of course; how else should I perceive what you have said?”

This is some dream or enchantment thought Childermass. Aloud he replied “it seems that I have a fetch that does my wooing for me, sir. What has he told you?”

Mr Norrell paced a little around the room; the nervous energy that had propelled him thus far now seemed to have vanished. Childermass drew out an armchair so that he might sit down and joined him in another.

“Every conversation that I have ever had with you has been a quarrel,” said Mr Norrell, passing a trembling hand over his brow. “Please do not debate with me now. You have told me that you would follow the magician that would call John Uskglass home, that you wished me to give you hope. I know from whom that message came; better than you do yourself perhaps. Having waited for it for such a great number of years it took me a little time to understand that I had received it at last. I have now perceived that you were waiting for some definite commitment from me in return; here it is. Now, come back with me to Hurtfew this day; I cannot live alone there anymore and you are intended to be my companion in the work that is to follow.”

There was silence for some moments. If Childermass was tempted to speak harshly in return, he mastered that impulse; and when he answered the other it was with a gentler tone than he had ever done previously.

“Mr Norrell, I have never meant to marry; if I did then it would not be to a man who has reduced me to beggary and my friend to little better. I can bear it – it is only as low as I have been before, but how do you think that Mr Segundus will manage? The school was to be his livelihood as well as his life’s purpose,” he said at last. “If you wish to show me some favour, will you not reconsider that business?”

“The school?” said Mr Norrell, reviving a little. “No, I deserve your gratitude for my actions there; I have saved the both of you from the consequences of your own foolishness and impulse. Besides you will have no need to be employed after we are married.”

I must be plainer, thought Childermass ** _._** “Sir, it seems that you have misunderstood a great deal that I have said to you; believe me when I say that I regret that. Indeed, I regret that we have ever spoken,” he said aloud. “Please understand me now. I have no message for you concerning anything – the words with which I have addressed you were spontaneous and arising from a hope that you were a better man than you appeared. This hope I now see was misplaced. Your own vanity has misled you. There are no terms on which we could be married.”

With that he rose from his chair. Mr Norrell rose also, bowed stiffly and walked towards the door.

“You will not tell me what work it was that I was to be your companion in?” said Childermass, the thought having escaped him.

“You have refused me; I refuse further explanation,” said Mr Norrell. Then he left the room and the house.

All at once Childermass remembered that he had not spoken of Mr Lascelles. He ran down the staircase to the street and flung open the door. But it was too late; Mr Norrell’s carriage had already left.

The next moment Mr Honeyfoot and Mr Segundus arrived at the house in Mr Honeyfoot’s own coach. They had been visiting Sir Robert Norton with a view to Mr Segundus becoming tutor to his three younger sons. Mr Norrell’s carriage driving away had not escaped them.

They had spoken very briefly, Childermass told them; Mr Norrell had not said anything that he believed to be of consequence and he had evidently not changed his mind about allowing the school at Heartsease. Neither had he spoken of Mr Lascelles; and he had left before Childermass could raise the matter himself.

“As for myself, I must go and earn my living. You shall not see me for some time, sirs,” he added. With that he turned away into an alley before either gentleman magician could ask him where he was going or why Mr Norrell had spoken to him alone.

Mr Norrell was greeted by a smiling Mr Drawlight when he came home; Mr Lascelles was in the sitting room if his host would care to join him for tea, he was informed.

Mr Norrell would not.

“Oh – but I must tell you that I have repeated to him your wise question of this morning – about whether a gentleman should follow his own judgement in intimate matters, whatever the world may say and Mr Lascelles was very glad to hear that you had accepted my advice. Should you wish to ask him any question I am sure that he would be happy to hear you, and to give you a very agreeable answer,” said Mr Drawlight encouragingly.

“Your advice was worthless,” said Mr Norrell. “You should have told me to stay at home – I would not then have lowered myself to make an offer only to be rejected and scorned.”

“You have made some proposal to Mr Segundus?” said Mr Drawlight, turning paler than usual.

“No, to Childermass. But a magician should not marry as my uncle often told me.” With that he made to walk to the library, then turned and enquired of Mr Drawlight; “should you not be gone by now? I do not mean to hold another dinner.”

Mr Drawlight took all this news to his friend. When he had finished Mr Lascelles was silent for some moments.

“Does he mean to propose to every man in York before me?” he said finally.

“I suppose that when a man has never been drunk, coarse gin tastes as good as brandy,” said Mr Drawlight. “What shall we do?”

“I have not ventured this far along the path to turn back now. You will find this person and I shall offer him whatever he requires to remove himself. I shall not risk his agreeing to a second proposal; it is obvious that this first refusal is a feint.”

“And if he will not accept your offer?”

“Then he must be dealt with by other means must he not?”

With that Mr Lascelles left the room.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

Sir Robert Norton had three young sons, all of whom were in need of education and taming before they could be sent to Eton. He did not expect Mr Segundus to make them magicians, he explained; that would be somewhat too close to a profession. Their tutor should merely give them a gentleman’s introduction to learning – a little Latin, a little history and so on. Mr Segundus would find that his sons’ previous instructors – there had been a number – had sadly been unable to accomplish this although not for lack of effort. He was however happy to say that they had all left his employment on agreeable terms when they decided on quieter occupations; Mr Segundus might have heard of Captain Williams of the 51st Light Infantry who was making such a great name for himself in The Peninsula.

With that Sir Robert opened the door to the schoolroom to reveal two little boys of eleven and nine suspending a third of seven from the window by his heels and rather thrust Mr Segundus towards them. Then he hurried away, calling “Obey him, you young blaggards!” over his shoulder. But when he crept back an hour later, it was to find his children all turned upright and talking of Julius Caesar and his campaigns; and Mr Segundus neither mad nor weeping although he now wore a wreath of ivy pulled from the wall outside the window (for there were no laurels to be had).

“He will do very well, sir, we shall keep him,” said his eldest son, whose name was George. “Now run along; John here is going to let Fred be Caesar and I shall be Nelson and we are going to argue on who would have won the Battle of The Nile if they had fought it between them; and then write it all up in Latin.”

Sir Robert took his amazement back to Miss Caroline in the drawing room; she was very pleased to hear of it, having commended Mr Segundus to her father as exactly the kind of gentle Braveheart who might suit the younger Nortons.

“Perhaps this means that you will consider a word to Mr Norrell on the matter of Heartsease House and the school, sir?” she said.

“No, my dear – I cannot tell a gentleman what to do with his own property or I might as well be a Jacobin – suppose that Norrell were to tell me that I should let out the small parlour to Lord Byron and his crew in return? And you know that magic does not agree with me.”

Mr Segundus went home that evening very pleased with his pupils whom he had found to be a good natured little pack of bear cubs, but very tired – too tired to read, or to work on his manuscript he soon discovered. This was to be his life for some time he acknowledged with a sigh; and he fell asleep without even the breath to blow out his candle.

 

Upon leaving his friends, Childermass had walked swiftly to the stables of a ruined house some two miles from York and taken a pack from underneath a flagstone. A raw black stallion called Brewer was also hidden there. The animal shewed no great signs of having missed its master but allowed itself to be saddled; this was sign of affection enough for Childermass. He tied the pack behind him and rode until he reached the woods above Heartsease House.

Here he dropt the reins and let Brewer crop where he would. Meanwhile Childermass sat and waited for the night, turning from Heartsease a little in front of him to Hurtfew a short way south east as he did so. “What was the work?” was all that he said to himself.

At dusk he opened his pack and took out a candle, a flint and a small pack of cards, hand drawn. He lit the candle and waited for a moment until its flame burned first yellow and then blue. Then he took it up and looked through its light, turning in a circle as he did so.

Heartsease was now revealed as a ruin twice the size of the house that stood in daylight, yet with a garden full of nodding grey roses whose scent reached Childermass where he stood; and there was a light at one of its windows _._ Hurtfew meanwhile blazed red on the horizon as if set on fire.

“And yet the man is not warmed by such heat,” said Childermass to himself. He set down the candle on a tree stump and turned to the cards.

He laid several of them out on the ground and pondered them for a moment.

“The Hierophant – that means it is in the earth – The King of Coins – it is near a bridge – The Queen of Cups – it is a bridge over water – the two of cups – I must go north. The King of Swords – then I must go East.” He paused a moment then said “Well, there is no help for it if I am to eat.”

He mounted Brewer and rode a little way towards Northallerton, reading further cards as he went by the light of the moon overhead. Then he followed the Wiske River and its streams, until he found a bridge by a ruined cottage in a quiet hollow of trees which seemed to satisfy both him and the cards. There he tied the horse to a stump and began to dig with a knife in the bridge wall. He had worked for half an hour to uncover a hole and a small chest within it when he was alerted by the horse’s whinny to two others on the bridge. Both were dressed in the same manner as Childermass; that is to say, swathed about in long, patched black cloaks, gloves and scarves. Their only notable features were that one was tall with a round bald white head like the moon above him; and that the other was shorter and had a misshapen hand.

“We did not think to see you here, John. We thought that you were too fine to meet with us now. I see that your face has not improved itself,” said the second.

“I see that your fingers have not grown back, Sam Nicks,” said Childermass, pulling out the chest.

“This is not your land to rob though, as we agreed some time ago: you keep to the west of York and us to the East. Or do you wish to return to our previous partnership?”

“I have no need of your friendship.”

“No? I see you digging in walls – how have you been reduced so low? – like a common thief. What of your magician acquaintances? What of dear old Mr Greyshippe? Can he not support you with the money you would not let us take from him?”

“Let us see what he has there,” said the other man and pointed a pistol.

Childermass smiled and broke open the rusted lock of the chest; there was a wrapped parcel within. In a few moments he revealed it to be a book with a raven and a crown stamped on the cover.

“Here, Jack Oliver,” he said and held it out.

“A book – we cannot sell that,” said Oliver in disgust.

“But I can,” said Childermass with a bow. **“** Gentlemen, I shall bid you adieu and leave you to your evening’s entertainment.” He took Brewer’s reins and mounted the saddle.

“You shall John – and you shall remember not to stray this far from York or you will not find us so loving again,” said Samuel Nicks.

Childermass rode a little way back to Heartsease where he could examine the volume. “ _Eighteen Wonders to be found in the House of Albion,_ ” he remarked to the horse, for want of any other companion. “I remember that Norrell spoke of it – we quarrelled on whether the author was a man or a woman. The school might have used it; now I must sell it for what I can get for it – ten guineas perhaps if we are lucky.” He looked around him for a moment to ensure that he was not followed; then he rode to the woods, tethered and tended to the horse, wrapt himself in his cloak and laid down on the forest floor to sleep.

 

Mr Drawlight and Mr Lascelles had found it politic to avoid Mr Norrell in the days after he returned from York; luckily Mr Norrell was as anxious to avoid them. He spent his time in the library reading over his notebooks and Sutton Grove and eating his meals off a tray left outside the door, when he ate at all. Mr Lascelles dined alone in state every evening, Lucas asking him in a pointed manner how many he should set out the silver for on each occasion. Mr Drawlight meanwhile had Davey take him into York a great deal; and he was able to tell Mr Lascelles a week later over breakfast that they might find Childermass at The Golden Fleece at 16 Pavement that day at noon.

So it was that Childermass, having gone to the inn and sold his book for a guinea that he could not refuse, found his arm taken in a friendly manner in the street outside by Mr Drawlight and himself being led to the steps of Mr Norrell’s carriage.

 “Mr Childermass! We dined together at Hurtfew scarcely two weeks ago! You ate a great deal of my fowl _la Montmorenci_ I recall,” said Drawlight.

“I remember you,” said Childermass. “But if you are here then where is Tweedledee?”

“Enough, we have not come here to make conversation with the rogue,” said Lascelles from within the carriage. He beckoned Childermass closer to the door.

“Let us not waste words; I know that the scheme is to make Norrell marry one or the other of you – when Segundus overplayed his hand you stept in; do not deny that you are refusing his proposals to make him more desperate. Now you have tried to remove me as a rival with slanderous gossip. Tell me your price to leave York tonight and not return and you shall have it.”

Drawlight took out a purse that contained the rent money for Heartsease and displayed it to Childermass. “I know that this was all you had. Take it to another town – there will always be an opening for thieves,” said Lascelles.

“So,” said Childermass with a smile, “I tried to drive you away from Mr Norrell and then refused his proposal the next day – I am so cunning that I do not understand myself, sir. Has it not occurred to you that my friends and I warned Norrell for his own sake, even though we might gain nothing from it?”

“No, for that would be absurd,” said Lascelles. “Be reminded of your station in life and withdraw.”

“You are perhaps a little vain of having won a gentleman’s love,” said Drawlight, patting his arm. “But be sensible; his friends will never allow him to marry such as you, however strong his affections. Take the money and be happy elsewhere.”

“Love, is it?” said Childermass shortly and laughed. “Well gentlemen, you seem to know a great deal of my business; let me tell you what is yours. I will not leave York at the order of a stranger who came here a month ago to play the gentleman from a slum in Bootham Bar. I know your own history and your plans for Mr Norrell; and I shall do my best to disrupt them.”

“With neither money nor friends?” said Drawlight, “for I know that you have only a guinea to your name and your meetings with Mr Honeyfoot and Mr Segundus are no more.”

But Childermass had turned away down the alley and Mr Drawlight addressed the plain air. Later that day, at Mr Lascelles’s urging, they met with Samuel Nicks and Jack Oliver and gave them a third of the money in the purse.

 

Mr Honeyfoot was now the only one of the three magicians whose time was still under his own command (excepting his daughter’s wedding). He had pondered the question of how he might again try to warn Mr Norrell against Mr Lascelles for a week or so when a clerk came round to High-Petergate on the Monday morning and asked that Mr Honeyfoot do his employer, Mr Robinson, the courtesy of coming and speaking to him at his offices in Coney-street. If he did so he might hear something to his advantage. At his wife’s urging, Mr Honeyfoot went with the clerk to see what might be about.

Mr Robinson was Mr Norrell’s attorney and it may be wondered why Mr Honeyfoot had not spoken to him regarding Mr Lascelles in the first place; the truth was that he was rather scared of the gentleman, who had delivered a number of the letters that Mr Norrell had sent to the Learned Society of York Magicians, refusing them permission to visit his library _et cetera_ in the harshest of terms. Also he had rather assumed that Mr Norrell’s lawyer must know and approve of the business with Heartsease House; lawyers after all are famed for their admirable detachment when it comes to moral questions.

Mr Robinson was the son of the attorney who had sold Hurtfew Abbey to John Haythornthwaite some thirty or so years before; if Mr Haythornthwaite could have returned from his grave to see him however he would have been unable to tell the difference between the son and the father, both so shining, businesslike and unageing.

The attorney began by putting on his gold spectacles and thanking Mr Honeyfoot for attending him so promptly; he would come straight to business. His principal Mr Norrell was minded to honour the lease that Mr Honeyfoot and his friends had taken on Heartsease House and to allow them to establish an academy there. There was one condition attached - the magicians must speak to his client before they began their studies as he wished to inform them of some peculiarities of the building of which they were certain to be ignorant (none of them being Mr Norrell). Also, Mr Norrell was willing to make the volumes in his library available to the scholars. The magicians might attend him at Hurtfew to discuss this.

Mr Honeyfoot’s first impulse was to seize Mr Robinson by the hand and dance with him around the room. Then he remembered that he was not in his parlour at home and contented himself with jigging a little in his chair. But what had caused this change of heart he asked? Only a few days ago Mr Norrell had seemed so determined to take the advice of his new friends – he supposed that Mr Robinson knew of all the recent history of Heartsease and Mr Lascelles?

Ah yes, said the attorney, he knew of Mr Lascelles – a gentleman very fond of buckskin breeches and linen cravats to judge by his outlays of Mr Norrell’s money; but he perceived (putting his head to one side and smiling) that Mr Honeyfoot knew more. Mr Honeyfoot immediately related the contents of Aunt Charlotte Norton’s letter and his own failure to warn Mr Norrell. Would Mr Robinson now speak to his principal on the matter?

He was obliged for the thought, said Mr Robinson but he had already visited Mr Norrell at Hurtfew on the previous day and did not believe that his client would come to any harm at Mr Lascelles’s hands. Mr Norrell’s servants were very reliable – matters, he was sure, would be concluded without his intervention. As for Mr Honeyfoot himself, Mr Robinson supposed that he would now wish to speak to his fellow magicians?

Yes of course, said Mr Honeyfoot, a little bewildered, to Mr Segundus and to Childermass.

Oh, of course to Childermass said Mr Robinson – Childermass most of all.

The problem would be, said Mr Honeyfoot that he was not sure where exactly to find Childermass at present. Then he should be sure to make efforts to discover him as quickly as possible, said Mr Robinson, with another smile.

 

Their business in York had kept the London gentlemen away from the Abbey until the Saturday evening; they were both alarmed to see Mr Robinson’s carriage drawing away from the door when they returned.

Mr Drawlight in his time at Hurtfew had sought to relieve his host of the burden of reading his attorney’s letters; so much so that Mr Norrell had not even realised that they had arrived before Mr Drawlight had abstracted them. Now he hurried to the sitting room with Mr Lascelles, where they discovered Mr Norrell drinking tea for the first time that week.

“We should not have left you undefended, sir,” he cried, taking up a teaspoon and waving it about. “A person of your refined temperament should not be harried with business, especially when his soul is convalescing from such grievous, melancholy wounds.”

He was perfectly well, now, said Mr Norrell, taking a sip of tea. As for Mr Robinson, he had merely come to the Abbey to enquire as to why he had not had a reply to a number of his letters on various matters of business – and to a notice of a library sale in Newcastle (this latter being what had truly alarmed him).

“Why, how can that have happened?” said Drawlight. “Lucas, I am sure that I have seen you place Mr Norrell’s letters on the chased silver tray atop the _demi-lune_ table in the hall every morning.”

Yes, said Lucas, he was sure that Mr Drawlight _had_ seen him do that. No, there was no chance that a mouse or a rat had removed them. Even at Hurtfew, the mice did not read.

“It was as well that he came – I had important business to give him that could not wait,” said Mr Norrell, putting down his cup.

“May I ask what business, sir?” said Mr Lascelles with a bow and a smile. “A gentleman only suffers his attorney to call on a Saturday when he contemplates some great change in his manner of living.”

“Oh - it is merely that I have decided to allow the school at Heartsease and Robinson must draw up the lease. You need not have concerned yourself about the matter; I wonder now why you were so agitated over it.”

Mr Drawlight dropt the teaspoon; Mr Lascelles grew pale, then red and advanced to stand over Mr Norrell. Lucas at once came away from the curtains so that he was on Mr Norrell’s other side.

“I concerned myself because you begged me to settle the business. And now you are to be friends again with that trio of thieves? Do you mean to ruin me entirely?”

Here Mr Drawlight, dodging a little between Lucas and his friend, grasped Mr Lascelles’s wrist. Perhaps they had misunderstood? Perhaps Mr Norrell meant only to allow Mr Honeyfoot and Mr Segundus to run a little school that might easily be ignored? They were both very easy and biddable persons after all. But he was certain that there could be no question of Childermass receiving Mr Norrell’s favour. Childermass was indeed a thief and what was worse not a gentleman.

“What care I for that? Of course Childermass will be there; he is the most important of all,” said Mr Norrell. “Nothing can happen without Childermass!” and his eyes filled with tears.

“I will not allow it!” said Lascelles.

“There is nothing that you may allow me, sir!” cried Mr Norrell, rising to his feet.

But with that his little stock of courage was exhausted. Lucas gave his master his arm and led him from the sitting room to the library. Then he closed the door and stood outside despite Mr Drawlight’s pleas to be allowed within. Mr Robinson had particularly commended him for his care of Mr Norrell that morning and had told him not to let his master be disturbed and so both Lucas and Mr Drawlight would remain outside the library door. Drawlight was obliged to retreat to the garden and Mr Lascelles.

“He has gone mad,” said Lascelles, pacing about the lawn with his own leaping shadow. “There are drunken doctors in York; I shall find one that will swear that he must be confined – yes and also a brokedown clergyman who will say that he married us. We are wed already if the care I have taken of him is any measure. Do you not see madness here, Christopher?”

“I do, Henry,” said Drawlight.

“If they do not speak then I may still prevail. He must not reach the Abbey. _Childermass must not speak to Norrell_! He shall not sit in my chair nor lie in my bed! You shall take the message we agreed upon tomorrow at dawn.”

Drawlight sighed a little but went to order a carriage; if Mr Lascelles were to be ruined now then Mr Drawlight would surely be crushed in the rubble of his fall. There was another journey to York on the Sunday from which he returned with only one third of the rent money in his friend’s purse.

 

On leaving Mr Robinson’s office in Coney-street on the Monday Mr Honeyfoot at once sent a message to Mr Segundus at Lady-Peckitt’s-yard informing him of the good news and begging him to come to dinner that evening.

“But who can have pleaded our case?” said his friend when he arrived at High-Petergate at six o’clock. Was there any requirement that Mr Norrell be a teacher? No, only the condition that he had mentioned said Mr Honeyfoot.

“And this must mean that Lascelles’s star is waning – and we may in any case warn Mr Norrell as soon as we see him,” said Mr Segundus. “I confess, though it is not a gentlemanly thought, that I am a little pleased to see him defeated.”

“You were never more the gentleman, John,” said Mr Honeyfoot.

The question now was how the two magicians were to find their third. Mr Segundus thought a little; then, leaving Mr Honeyfoot to dine with his family, he had Waters drive the carriage up to Heartsease House where he alighted.

It was still a light July evening; Mr Segundus walked a little way into the woods above the house. He waited; a green shadow detached itself from an oak and came towards him. Mr Segundus related his news to his friend as quickly as he could.

“But though we are so joyful we are still bewildered as to who to thank for this turn of fortune, apart from Mr Norrell himself of course,” he said. “Can you explain it?”

Childermass shook his head and turned away for a moment. Then -“will you allow me to go to Hurtfew and speak with Norrell first?” he said.

Of course said Mr Segundus, very willingly – he and Mr Honeyfoot could follow on the morrow. The two magicians clasped hands – “Everything will be well now, John,” said Childermass. Then Mr Segundus returned to York in the carriage.

It was around seven o’clock when Childermass mounted Brewer and began to ride at a swift pace towards Hurtfew – “He only spoke to me,” he said aloud. “How shall I greet him? I could pretend that I do not understand why he has changed his mind and tease him a little. But no – we have travelled past that now; although where we have arrived I do not know. I shall thank him sincerely – he will put his hands behind his back and strut about a little with his nose down but I shall only smile and then – what then?

“But Lascelles! I shall not spare him if I see him. I shall bow very prettily and then drive him out of the place like the cur he is – out of Yorkshire indeed. But what is the work? Norrell must tell me now.”

The evening was peaceful, warm and still. Childermass had just reached the small copse of trees by the moor road that he had once shewn to Dr Foxcastle when two men on horseback rode out to greet him. Childermass was minded to continue but the pistol in the first’s hand persuaded him to halt.

“You will not snub two old friends, John,” said Samuel Nicks as he held the weapon steady. Jack Oliver meanwhile dismounted, walked forward and tied Childermass’s hands behind him.

“Indeed – but I have no friends here,” said Childermass. Oliver laughed and bound his wrists a little tighter. Then he felt in Childermass’s pockets.

“He has no pistol, Sam,” he said.

“You have no pistol? You should never sell your barking iron, John – that was the first thing I taught you. You are poorer than I thought. What did you need the shillings for?”

“A ribbon to tie in my hair,” said Childermass. “And all this is because I took a book from Wiske Bridge? Take the guinea I got for it and let me go.”

“No, John,” said Samuel. “Another friend of yours has already promised us far more money than that to escort you safely across the moors – a London gentleman. Let us ride on.”

The three of them did so together at a slow pace with Childermass between the others. He looked around across the flat green land but no other rider approached; there was no reason to come along the road unless one intended to visit Hurtfew and so it was for the most part deserted throughout the year.

In five minutes they turned off the track and rode briskly over the turf for an hour or so until Childermass saw a pile of rocks and a lone tree in the distance.

“So you are become an assassin for hire, Sam,” he said at last as the horses’ pace slowed. “I should like to say that it is below you but in truth I think that it is a little too respectable an occupation. And your client – a Mr Lascelles I surmise. It is no surprise to me that two such as you should become acquainted.”

“We have a great deal in common, it is true,” said Nicks. “He seems to have found you as tedious a companion as I did; I often thought of murder when you were speaking of your Raven King. And your delicacy, John! – this one was too poor to be robbed, that one was too old to be killed – in truth I should have hanged you long ago. It was only what you found with your cards that saved you for a while and that was mostly books; and you drove me to distraction by reading those all night.”

“We should have hung him from the copse tree by the road and saved ourselves this journey,” said Oliver, wiping his head with a kerchief.

“But Mr Lascelles did not want the corpse found or given any burial or mourning – I had him pay us additional for that. He may rot out here alone until his king comes back,” said Nicks. “You may like to know, John, that there was a great deal of debate between Mr Lascelles and his companion over how we should kill you. The former was very anxious that you should suffer – I think that he should have liked to do the business himself; but his little friend pleaded your case and said that it should be quick and clean so as not to mark you too much. That is why we mean to hang you.”

“Are you not going to beg us to live?” said Oliver, thumping Childermass between the shoulders.

“We should be grateful that he is not wasting his breath; Lascelles will have all of Mr Norrell’s money, so do not think to offer us that, John.”

They had now almost reached the tree. “There is a treasure hidden near Carlisle – my cards have seen it,” said Childermass speaking very quickly and low. “I have not had the time to seek it further. I will lead you to it and you shall have it entire if you will let me go – you may tell Lascelles that you killed me and have his money too. I shall hide myself and visit him later.”

“Why, John, you do wish to live,” said Nicks with a smile. “But no; your treasure may be a chest of gold or it may be a book that only you can read. We will take the certain money and give ourselves the pleasure of watching you dance upon nothing.”

The three riders halted. “Bring the rope, Jack,” said Nicks, dismounting. “We shall put it around his neck and over the tree and then drive his horse away.”

Childermass, hearing this, and taking advantage of the other two being distracted, took his feet out of the stirrups and flung himself onto the turf, giving Brewer a great blow in the ribs with his heel as he did so. He landed on the earth with a thump and the horse galloped off before anyone could seize it.

“As ungracious as ever, I see,” said Nicks, kicking Childermass once or twice as he lay on the moor. “And even the horse has deserted you.”

“You will not expect me to change the habits of a lifetime now – it is too late for reform,” laughed Childermass with a gasp.

“Then how are we to do it?” said Oliver. “It is a warm evening – I am not spending a quarter of an hour hauling him up to be hanged now that the horse is gone. You must shoot him.”

“And waste the lead? No, you have a knife – cut his throat with that.”

Jack Oliver drew out the blade. “But I sharpened it only a day ago and the blood will splatter my sleeves.”

“Jack, you stab Sam, and Sam, you pop Jack, and see which one dies first,” said Childermass from the ground. “Then I shall fight the winner.”

Nicks took the knife from Oliver. “He is making us argue, as was his custom - here.” He pressed the knife slowly into Childermass’s thigh until the blood began to flow and Childermass cried out.

“There – it will take the night but he will be dead in the morning.”

He felt through Childermass’s pockets. “A guinea – thank you, John – a knife – it would not have defended you, the blade is too dull – and your cards.” These last he scattered around the dying man. Then he mounted his own horse and rode off with Jack Oliver and no backward glance.

Childermass lay back on the ground, reflecting on the irony that the evening on which he was dying was one of the finest that he had ever seen in his native county. John’s Farthings were in the turf, the sky was dusky and soft overhead and a small breeze fanned his face. Even the tree from which he was to have been hanged gave his eyes shade from the setting sun.

“Goodbye Mr Segundus,” he said aloud. “I do not know where I am bound. If I am able, I shall visit you once more although you will not see me; except that the candle flame will flicker as you read. Goodbye Mr Honeyfoot – you are a good man and it grieves me that you may think that I have deserted you. Goodbye Mr Norrell – we should always have quarrelled but I see now that it would not have mattered a jot.”

A large raven settled on the tree. “Leave my eyes until I am dead, sir,” said Childermass glancing upwards. Then he closed them and waited.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the delay in posting a new chapter; real life rather rugby tackled me over the past couple of months. For anyone still reading, the remaining chapters will be posted more quickly!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since it’s so long since I last updated here is a quick summary of the plot...Mr Honeyfoot’s plan to marry Mr Segundus to Mr Norrell failed – Mr Norrell stopped Messrs Segundus, Honeyfoot and Childermass opening a school of magic – Mr Lascelles plotted to marry Mr Norrell – Childermass refused Mr Norrell’s proposal of marriage – Mr Norrell changed his mind and allowed the school of magic – Childermass, on his way to Hurtfew to discuss this with Mr Norrell, was waylaid by highwaymen paid by Mr Lascelles and left for dead on the moors. Now read on ....

Upon his return to High-Petergate Mr Segundus had gone to the study, eaten a little bread and cheese, written letters of resignation and apology to Sir Robert Norton and to Miss Caroline and then taken up an improving volume to read. After a quarter of an hour of turning its pages in dutiful fashion, he had conceded to himself that he had not understood a word, put down the book, gone to Mr Honeyfoot and begged the use of his carriage again so that he might go to Hurtfew and join the discussions there. Mr Honeyfoot, who was engaged in some wedding business, had readily agreed.

Waters took the coach at a brisk pace towards the setting sun and the party had almost reached Hurtfew when they were halted by the sight of a horse standing in the middle of the road before them. It was Brewer, still saddled and bridled and as stock still as if an invisible rider were on his back; but with no sign of his master nearby.

Could Brewer have thrown him? But Childermass had perfect command of the beast and besides he was not lying in the road. Could the horse have escaped the Abbey stables? But its rider would never have left it untended there, even under the influence of such an excitement as the one that had gripped him two hours before. Waters hitched the animal to the carriage and Mr Segundus proceeded to Hurtfew much concerned by this strange event.

Mr Norrell was in the sitting room; it might be anticipated that the first meeting between these two gentlemen after the dramas of the previous month would be cold and diffident. But the older man had very easily convinced himself that his conduct towards the younger had been at all times irreproachable and Mr Segundus’s good nature was too worried to even consider the point.

Childermass rode between Heartsease and Hurtfew? – said Mr Norrell with some agitation in answer to the other’s questions. No, he had not reached the house – Lucas confirming that none of the servants had seen him. Since it seemed that the man must have come to some mishap, the footmen and other male servants were quickly organised into two forces under the steward and Mr Segundus. These parties left at once to cover the moors on foot and horseback with lanterns and dogs as the sun was now almost set.

Mr Norrell meanwhile remained at Hurtfew with the maids to await news (no one having suggested that he should venture outside). As soon as Mr Segundus had left him, he went to the library and ordered that a jug of water be drawn from the River Hurt and brought to him. Then he locked the door.

“I suppose that the horse has thrown him - who would do Childermass harm?” said Mr Norrell aloud to his books. “Mr Lascelles did speak of him harshly two days ago. But what would they have to quarrel about? I hope that they will not continue it here – I cannot abide shouting.”

He hesitated, felt the door to assure himself that it was still secure and then went to a little shelf nearby his desk. There he took down the most recent of a series of many small notebooks, each one marked with a different year’s date. He turned to its last pages: on the left hand side was written a clear copy of Ormskirk’s spell of location. On the right hand side was a series of dates between that day and this. Each had a cross or a tick beside it in Mr Norrell’s small crabbed hand; the ticks overwhelming the crosses as the dates grew nearer.

“It must be a tick this time,” said Mr Norrell to himself. He poured the water from the jug into a silver bowl which always stood on a small table in a corner of the library (except for the day of the Society’s visit, when he had hidden it carefully away). Then he looked fearfully over his shoulder even though he was alone in the room. At last he bent over the bowl, and said in a firm voice “John Childermass.” He drew his finger across the water’s surface: golden lines appeared there to divide it into quarters. “Heaven, Hell, Earth, Faerie,” said Mr Norrell to each of them in turn.

A small bluish light appeared in the quarter that he had called Earth. Mr Norrell paused and ticked the notebook with satisfaction **.** Then he tapped the water and the lines disappeared. He drew the quarters again, naming them “England, Scotland, Ireland, Elsewhere.” Now the light appeared in England. Again Mr Norrell drew, naming Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cumbria, Elsewhere, then City, Field, Mountain, Moor. At last the light that was Childermass glowed from the final quarter.

“But what does he do there? Oh, I shall try a vision. Two spells in the same evening. But I must! I must!” said Mr Norrell.

He poured a clean bowl of water and returned to the shelf. This time he took down a small battered volume, the oldest of all the notebooks it seemed and turned to the first page. There in a schoolboy’s careful script were the words ‘A Vision Spell – copied from the page in my Uncle Haythornthwaite’s book 17-.’ On the opposite side was written in a young man’s hand; ‘accomplished after ten year’s effort March 1st 17-,’ and a mark that might have been a tear.

Mr Norrell went back to the table, spoke the words and gazed into the water as if it were an infinite sea. Now the silver bowl showed him a picture – Childermass lying quite pale and still upon the turf, his arms and legs stretched out in a long cross near to a hawthorn tree, with a dark puddle by his side; the whole scene being lit by a strange light that was neither moon nor sun.

“But that might be anywhere on the moors – they will not find him and save him before he dies,” Mr Norrell cried aloud. “What use are spells if only to torment – better never to have seen him thus!”

He sat down and sobbed a little in front of the fire for a moment, then dried his eyes on his sleeve. “There is no help for it I suppose – nothing else can aid him,” he said. He went to another shelf; this time he took down a volume bound with ribbons and written in an ancient script. “To Summon back One who is near Death,” he read aloud.

All of the maids were in the kitchen or sleeping; there was no one to observe Mr Norrell leave Hurtfew in his banyan and cap with a lantern in his hand and walk down to the River Hurt. On arriving at the riverbank he stood on tip toe and peered through the branches of a willow tree that grew there; from this angle it seemed that there were two bridges stretching over the river. The first was the pleasing classical construction that had stood there for thirty years; but the other was a dark span of rough stones so heavy that it seemed a miracle that they had not collapsed, and it was reflected only in the water. Mr Norrell picked up the hem of his robe and ventured towards the second bridge’s middle, although to an observer it would seem that there was nothing for him to walk upon.

“My dear sir,” said a voice on the other bank. Hurtfew Abbey and its grounds still stood in moonlight but in front of Mr Norrell lay a sunlit meadow, the light of which quite eclipsed his lantern. A gentleman was standing in the middle regarding Mr Norrell through a quizzing glass.

This second person defies the author’s pen when it comes to description; were this volume illustrated as are more vulgar tomes, then the reader might be directed to the sketch that Mr Norrell himself made of a strange figure standing on a bridge between Hurtfew and Heartsease some days and chapters ago – a portrait that had been drawn from the life it now appeared.

“I have summoned you here, Fairy,” began Mr Norrell, putting down the lantern and hiding his hands in his sleeves so that the other should not see their trembling, “so that...”

“Summoned me!” said the gentleman. “You have done no such thing! I was merely strolling of a morning in my kingdom of Little Ease when I decided from my own great generosity of heart and refinement of spirit to call on you, my Christian neighbour, since we have not spoken for so many years.” And he polished his fingernails on his coat in a manner that Mr Drawlight would very much have admired.

“A Christian rode from Heartsease to Hurtfew this evening,” continued Mr Norrell. “Did you take and injure him for your amusement?”

The gentleman over the bridge turned and considered Heartsease which, far from being a neglected house some miles distant, now appeared over his shoulder as a fine mansion not twenty steps away.

“You mean the Christian with the blue candles? No; he often sleeps in my gardens and amuses us all as he walks through our revels at Heartsease when he thinks that he is alone. But I did not harm him; your fellow Christians were to blame. Could not your imprisoned water tell you that? When I wish to know what the water may tell me, I simply ask the river and she speaks.”

“What Christians do you mean?”

“Even for an English magician, that is a foolish question. They have both lived in your house and dined at your table for many nights; I had thought that their despair at your no doubt vile hospitality had driven them to the act so that they might have some gentlemanly amusement at last. I shall not censure them for it; they would have received far finer entertainment at my hands.”

“The injured Christian will not be found before he dies.”

“Indeed! He is very close to death,” said the fairy lightly.

“Will you let me guide him home across your kingdoms?”

“Of course – nothing could be simpler!”

“What is the payment that you will require for this service?”

“Why, you have already given me your heart’s blood to save him,” said the gentleman, holding up a curious little bottle filled with purple ink so that Mr Norrell could see it. “I had not imagined that you had so much to spare. What curses I shall inscribe with it!”

“Thank you,” said Mr Norrell, touching his breast for a moment, “but what else?”

“Oh – merely a trifle! You will recall that if one Christian leaves my kingdoms, then another must of course enter. It is simply a toll, a matter of etiquette and I am as bound by its rules as any other gentleman.”

“Yes – I remember that.”

“Then I shall look to entertain a new guest at Heartsease within three days; perhaps I shall have manticore prepared for the feast of welcome.”

With that, Mr Norrell’s neighbour bowed; Mr Norrell bobbed his head in turn, and returned over the bridge to Hurtfew. Once safely there he looked back; the far side was dark again.

He walked as quickly as he could to the library, took up the ancient book and read out words that were not English, although they were English magic. There was a pause – the chime very faintly of a silver bell – and then a creaking sound as if the shelves in the library had for a moment remembered that they were once trees in a forest. Then it was for a second as if the whole of the world including Mr Norrell had been twisted and shaken about into a new shape. He gasped and clutched at his desk.

After a few moments he put down the book, picked up the bowl of water and carried it carefully to the Hurt where he poured it into the stream. It was now the beginning of Dawn; by its silvery light Mr Norrell could see on the other side of the river indications of a narrow road leading out into darkness. He shuddered, wrapt his gown around him a little closer and sat down on a bench to wait.

Two hours later, as the sun rose, and the first members of the search party were returning, sad and weary, there was a flicker of black on the horizon. Mr Norrell stood up and the others followed his gaze. Over the park, over the grass, over the bridge came a figure, closer and closer until it stumbled and fell at Mr Norrell’s feet in a dead faint. Lucas and Davey sprang forward to support him; the head rolled back and was revealed as Childermass.

Mr Norrell ordered him carried into the house and this was done by four of the servants. The rest of the party lingered for a moment to gaze at the bridge across which Childermass had walked; were there not now two bridges standing over the Hurt, said a young footman, the second being almost transparent in the dawn light? He and his comrades screwed up their eyes and angled their heads the better to see and wondered if it would bear their weight; until the oldest servant present, a man with a short but venerable white beard, told them sharply that there was always only one bridge, and that they were to return to their duties, which they did directly. The old man himself, however, remained on the bench where Mr Norrell had waited and received his master’s nod as he passed.

Childermass was carried into the sitting room and laid on the sofa there, the others being unwilling to move him further until he had been examined by a doctor; he revived enough to drink some brandy and water and then fell back into his faint. Mr Segundus arrived at that moment, having previously refused to leave the moor until his friend should be found. He clasped Childermass’s hand once and then set out with Waters to bring a doctor from York. Mr Norrell meanwhile, seated himself in a corner and contemplated his mother’s long case clock.

The doctor arrived within two hours (Mr Segundus, having collapsed from exhaustion on his arrival, remained in York being tended by his friends) and examined his patient who was now awake; his feet were torn from walking across rough ground and there were bruises on his back but his only wound was on his right thigh – and this last, although it gaped wide, was entirely dry.

The doctor declared himself amazed that such a cut should have ceased bleeding spontaneously; he bound it for form’s sake and ordered rest and ointments and anything else that might make Childermass comfortable while he recovered. How had the man been injured, he asked? He had been attacked by highwaymen and left to die on the moors, said Childermass, gazing at Mr Norrell.

A strange sort of highwayman to attack a poor man and stab him in such a manner said the doctor, taking his leave with a promise to return the next day and also to tell Mr Segundus and Mr Honeyfoot that their friend would live.

Childermass took some more brandy and water and refused food; he would rest awhile now he said. The footmen propped him a little upright on his makeshift bed with pillows and cushions. The curtains were drawn and the servants warned to be quiet. Lucas held the door open for his master but Mr Norrell sat down by Childermass’s side, evidently intending to remain. The door was closed then and the two men were left alone in the dim light of the room.

Childermass had closed his eyes after his last words as if in sleep. Mr Norrell placed a small lap desk on his knees; then he began to write a letter as quickly as his cold fingers would allow. From time to time he turned and dared a glance at Childermass’s face before returning to his page. He continued in this manner for some minutes, peeping from one to the other until at last he looked to his friend and was startled to see that the latter was now awake and gazing at him with a strange mixture of eagerness and puzzlement.

At first Mr Norrell turned back and pointed his nose at his letter. But the continued stare drew him out again; he put down his pen and said;

“It is the purpose of your life to vex me; at least let me have some peace to write.”

“I am sorry, sir,” said Childermass, “but may I ask – has Brewer been found?”

“It was the horse that saved you – he somehow got back to the road. That alerted your friends to the fact that you had come to some mishap. You are very lucky that you heard the search party and wandered back to Hurtfew after them. I suppose that your insolence was not well received by the highwaymen.”

“No sir; so I am at Hurtfew, then?”

“You are; Mr Segundus will return tomorrow and have you driven back to York I dare say. You must take the letters that I am writing with you; they will be very necessary instruction when you open your school.”

“Thank you, sir – I recall now that I was riding here to speak with you about that matter; may we not discuss it before I leave?”

“No,” said Mr Norrell, “for I shall be going travelling myself this evening and for a long time; we shall not talk again. Everything will be in the letter addressed to Mr Segundus – he will read it to you after I am gone.” He pressed a little wax seal to the first letter, and then took up a sheet of paper to begin another.

“I do not need a letter to be read to me, Mr Norrell. And you say that I am at Hurtfew? What time of day is it, if you please?”

“You are in the sitting room and it is a little past noon.”

“Yes, Mr Segundus lay on this sofa after he fainted when we came to view the library in June. And I see that the clock points to ten past midday.”

“Indeed – does the ticking disturb you? I can have the clock stopt if it is preventing you from sleeping.”

“Not at all, Mr Norrell,” said Childermass. “I find it soothing, rather. The problem is that the trees are tapping on the window outside – is the wind high today? And the clock says that it is noon but I can see your neighbour’s lights through that gap in the curtains; it seems that it is midnight there and that a party is raging. Can you not ask them to be quiet?”

Mr Norrell rose and drew the curtains to. “There are no trees or lights – it is merely the twigs burning and crackling in the grate,” he said. “Drink some brandy and go back to sleep; I shall not be here when you wake.”

He took the bottle to pour a measure of spirits into Childermass’s glass. The other sat up a little and grasped his sleeve.

“Where do you go? Is it back over the bridge?” he said. “May I not come with you?”

“Come with me where?”

“Along the road that leads from the moor.”

“I do not know what you mean, Childermass.”

“You do – look, there it is on the floor, running into the hallway and out of the door.”

“There is no road,” said Mr Norrell. But as he turned away he stumbled a little.

“There, see! Your heel caught on that skull,” said Childermass. “They bruised my feet as well as I walked home. Now I remember it all! I was lying almost dead on the earth last night; and the earth itself rose up to lift me. Something was new in the land and the land was glad to know it. I walked the same road through forests and halls and North Allerton Marketplace and past Heartsease. It led me to you. You summoned me home. It was magic and you did it. You did it for me.”

“You asked me once if I were a practical magician and I did not answer you; I have given you your answer now,” said Mr Norrell at last.

“It is a better answer than I could ever have wished for,” said Childermass and clasped his hand. “That you saved me from Mr Lascelles’s kindness as well....”

“I have not saved you yet, Childermass,” said Mr Norrell.

“I do not understand; I am here with you now, having almost been dead – how am I not saved? Do you not wish to know my history with Lascelles – and your own? Surely this is the beginning of the work that you spoke of to me?”

“I have set out some answers in these pages,” said Mr Norrell, holding up his first letter. “Of course, it is sealed and addressed to Mr Segundus so you will have to wait...”

But Childermass had already taken the letter from Mr Norrell’s hand and torn it open.

“‘Hurtfew _Abbey, Yorkshire, July-18_ - _Sir, pressing business of an unusual nature has called me away at short notice and I shall not return to Yorkshire.....books in library....suggestions for a programme of study at Heartsease to be found on little desk that you will remember – a mere hundred pages, very modest I am afraid -_ et cetera et cetera....,” he read aloud. “Ah! ‘ _You will recall my admonishments to you on the subject of Fairies and the wariness that a magician should employ in any dealings with them; I now have a modern example to offer you._

_“‘Having for some years been in fact a practical as well as a theoretical magician – a circumstance that I have not hitherto found it necessary to draw to your or anyone else’s attention – I was yesterday evening obliged to perform a series of spells in order to rescue Childermass from some difficulties that were initiated by Mr Lascelles. In the course of this I also regrettably had to employ the services of a fairy to whom I shall refer as my Neighbour over the Bridge. You will oblige me if you do not attempt to seek this person’s real name._

_“‘These dealings have put me under an obligation that I may not refuse either as a magician or as a gentleman. I draw it to your attention not to boast but to warn you that the same fairy personage has certain rights over the property of Heartsease and over two other fairy kingdoms in the vicinity. Both you and your future pupils and scholars should show the greatest caution when studying magic there. I have reasons (which I need not expound on) to think that there will be another practical magician in Yorkshire soon and any successful thamaturgical performance at your school will only increase the danger of fairy intrusion; as in addition will your own sensibilities and amiability of person **.**_

_“‘Please tell Childermass that he should not light blue candles in the garden at Heartsease since he is liable to attract unwanted attention that way; but perhaps do not inform him that this is on my instructions since this will surely mean that he will straightaways do exactly that. Instead, present the advice as your own and he will be more likely to obey it; but keep Childermass safe by any means._

_“‘I end by wishing you success in your endeavours._

_Yours etc_

_Gilbert Norrell’.”_

“If you will allow me to reseal it,” said Mr Norrell, holding out a hand from the seat to which he had retreated as this outrage was committed on his letter. But Childermass had already crumpled the pages and thrown them into the fire. Then he took up the brandy bottle and downed several mouthfuls.

“I can have Lucas bring you some water,” continued Mr Norrell with a sniff.

Childermass shook his head as if he were emerging from drowning in deep water. “You will have to forgive me, sir,” he said. “I find that – shortly after almost dying - I am talking with the only practical magician in England for three hundred years about his dealings with fairies; I need brandy not water.”

“You might still use the glass.”

“You might tell me what these spells were that you performed on me and what this obligation is before I go back to the bridge and find out myself.”

“Oh! Well, since you are determined to be disagreeable, Childermass,” – here Mr Norrell paced about the room very much in the manner that he had used to lecture his fellow students in Mr Honeyfoot’s study some weeks ago.

“The first was simply a spell of location to find you – you may be interested to know that I used the one contained in Ormskirk’s _Revelations of Thirty-Six Other Worlds_ which you were reading out at the York Assembly Rooms without any notion of what it meant when we first met. Next I performed a simple vision spell to show you to me in a basin of water; the first spell that I ever learned as it happens. Finally I employed an ancient magic that allowed me to place a road between the moor where you lay and Hurtfew. Unfortunately I had to ask permission of the fairy who rules that particular land for the road to run across it and over the bridge; that necessitated the paying of a toll, so to speak, within a certain period...”

“And the journey that you are going on is into Faerie to pay it,” finished Childermass. “Perhaps you should have remembered your own advice on dealings with fairies, sir. But wait – I have heard tales where similar bargains have been settled by sending an animal instead. Could we not tempt a cat over the bridge with a bit of fish? A cat would do very well in Faerie I should think.”

“No, it must be a Christian; if we could use a cat instead then I should have thought of it already.”

“Would you though, Mr Norrell?” said Childermass with a sigh. “Very well; what will happen if you do not go?”

“To you? The authorities differ; Sutton-Grove says that you will be carried off by the Wild Hunt to who knows what fate – Pevensey, that you will simply fade away as if made of dew when the sun next touches you. It is most likely that you will find yourself walking over the bridge in three days time whether you mean to or not.”

“I shall mean to, Mr Norrell; forgive me but you are the least suitable magician to go into Faerie alone that I can imagine. I shall go there myself and take my chances.”

“You cannot walk, Childermass and no one is going to assist you before I leave this evening.”

“Very well – I shall wait until my leg is mended; then I shall take a blue candle to the garden of Heartsease and see what happens. I knew already that the place was uncanny – it should not need much more to effect an introduction to this Neighbour of yours. I dare say that he will be tired of your conversation within a week and be glad to send you home and have me in your place.”

“You speak as if you were proposing to go to York Races – did Anne Bloodworth enjoy her time in Faerie? The only people to be pitied more than those who remain there are the ones whom the fairies return aged and worn when they are done with them.”

“Anne Bloodworth was a poor unschooled child; my appetite for magic is raging now. Who says that I shall be a servant there? Why should I not ride with the Wild Hunt and seek the Raven King, and then return with him to England? You speak of Faerie as terrible; are not all such great wonders?”

“Why will you not accept my decision, Childermass? Is it not simple enough?” cried Mr Norrell in agonies, sitting down and wringing his hands.

“Sir, we have known each other scarcely two months; in that time you have upbraided me as a thief, done magic to save my life, denied a school - allowed a school - permitted yourself to be advised by two of the greatest scoundrels in England, courted a friend of mine almost to the church door, proposed marriage to me and now say that you must leave me forever for the Other Lands,” said Childermass. “At least give me some chance of understanding you.”

Then he poured a glass of brandy and water and placed it gently in the other’s hand. Mr Norrell sipped at it a little and said:

“These last few weeks have been so confusing, so full of incidents and speeches that I could wish that I might sit down and read back over them like the pages of a novel to further ponder their meaning; although I never read novels, Childermass. Where shall I start?”

“With the fairy, sir; you must have had some previous acquaintance with him.”

Mr Norrell sighed and began.

When I was twelve (he said) I was brought to Hurtfew, together with my cousins, to meet my Uncle Haythornthwaite. All three of us were shewn his library; my cousins laughed and threw ink at each other and ran out again but I went to the shelves. Out of all the books housed there I took down only one; inside it was a page removed from a much older volume. I knew somehow that the writing on it was a spell; in an instant, I wished to become a magician.

My uncle was convinced by this incident to make me his heir, both to his property and to his magical interests which were recent but intense. We determined that I was to become a practical magician, my uncle acting as the Aristotle to my Alexander the Great in this matter. Our ultimate aim was the restoration of English magic and to this end we looked to have some acknowledgement from John Uskglass in due course.

Hurtfew was ideally suited to such an enterprise, having been built on the site of one of the Raven King’s properties. I was given the run of my uncle’s library – books were bought on my orders – I was restricted in nothing despite my young age. There was one exception; over the River Hurt which ran through our grounds, there was an old tumbledown bridge. It was a fairy bridge and I was warned never to cross it; fairy roads and bridges were not for Christians and were I to walk on one then I might never find my way home. There was a lead chain placed across the bridge’s end to emphasize the point.

I secretly baulked at this restraint; ordinary common people might be in danger but as a magician surely I could not be harmed. I decided to cross the bridge one day to see what happened there; I had the idea that that was the kind of enterprise that magicians undertook.

On an October afternoon I undid the chain and walked to the centre of the bridge. Almost immediately a person appeared in a meadow on the other side; a gentleman who introduced himself as my neighbour. I asked him if he was a fairy and laughing, he replied that he was. It was obvious from his appearance that he did not lie.

(“How did he appear?” said Childermass, who had listened very intently and refrained from interrupting to this point.

“Something like Earl Howard in his ceremonial robes I suppose,” said Mr Norrell vaguely. “I remember that I could not name the colour of any of his clothes.”)

He went on: I was not as scared as I should have been; I was delighted. I informed the fairy that I was a great magician who intended to call back the Raven King and that I assumed that he had come at my command to offer to be my servant. He would of course need to prove his abilities to me before I could entertain the idea.

Nothing could be more simple, said the fairy. He was the ruler of three Faerie kingdoms. The first was the bridge on which I was currently standing; it was called Nothing Please. The other two were called Heartsease and Little Ease. These lay on the further side of the bridge. Would I do him the honour of visiting them now and dining with him that night? It was four thousand years since he had entertained an English magician and he longed to do so again.

Would I not have to eat manticores and such if I dined in Faerie, I asked? Cook always baked a plum cake on Fridays and I would rather keep my appetite for that.

Then would I not come with him and learn magic from the mountains and the rivers, he asked? No, I said; I could not read a mountain – I wished only to learn magic from books.

Then, he asked a third time; would I not come to see my mother? Of course, they had told me that she was dead; but fairies, as I must have read, had the power to return Christians to life sometimes. The lady was in fact living with him here in Faerie; despite his kind hospitality she longed to return to her son. If I were to spend but an hour with him at Little Ease then I might open the long case clock in the corner of my uncle’s sitting room and my mother would step out. Had I not sometimes thought that I heard her voice calling from it? He only wished that he might simply escort the lady home to me himself; but Alas! Etiquette dictated that if _she_ were to leave his kingdom then _another_ Christian must enter it to be his guest – for a little while at least.

As he spoke, a woman stept into view by his side; she seemed in all ways to be my mother. She held out her arms to me in her old fashion; I could not help but run to her over the bridge.

 As I came to the other side I stumbled for a moment and fell to my knees; and the woman laughed. I knew then that she was not my mother – my mother had never laughed at me for any clumsiness; she was the only one who did not. I looked around; the meadow had disappeared and now I saw only a bare island of ashes lit by a red sun. Where the woman had stood was a sheep’s skull thrust upon a stick with tattered robes blowing about it. Its jaw opened and the words “Welcome, Great Magician” became inscribed upon the air in silver letters next to it.

It was the fall that saved me; but for that I should have stept off the bridge entirely and have been lost. Instead I turned and ran back across it as quickly as I was able, although it now seemed to stretch across a deep abyss and to be a hundred times longer than when I had come. The fairy’s mockery pursued me however to the other bank.

(“You have not laughed,” he said breaking off and speaking to Childermass.

“I do not find it amusing,” said Childermass with a shrug, indicating that he should continue.)

I went straight to my uncle’s study (said Mr Norrell). He naturally upbraided me for some time on my foolishness; had my books ever lied to me about my mother or the library turned itself into a volcanic plain? I willingly agreed to his request that I make no more sorties into Faerie. The bridge was destroyed entirely the next day and the stones buried; nevertheless, several of our servants claimed that they could still see its reflection if they stood by the willow on the riverbank at night. They said that my uncle had taken down our bridge but not the fairy’s.

I devoted myself to study; by twenty one I was a practical magician. The question then was; what should I do with my abilities?

I first sought to summon John Uskglass – naturally presuming that after so many centuries alone he would be glad to speak with another magician. I had no answer, which is perhaps just as well, but which puzzled and troubled me. I concluded that much as Catherine of Winchester had sent away unwelcome suitors he intended to set me some task to prove my abilities. I awaited a sign from him, which I knew could be as simple as a bird’s flight or a candle’s flicker; but it did not come.

By thirty one I had given him up as a false ruler, no more to be followed than King Ludd or Robin Hood. I resolved to only study magic for my own satisfaction and amusement and to reveal my abilities to no one.

Here Mr Norrell paused to take a sip of brandy and Childermass burst out with a second question.

“Your uncle was not a magician then?”

“Neither theoretical nor practical – merely a gentleman thaumatomane.”

“You had no master at all to teach you?”

“No – only my books, which you so despised.”

“Man,” said Childermass, “do not speak of it so lightly – the Aureates all had masters. Did you not think to go to the government and offer them magic? Or to make yourself greater than Bonaparte?”

“I see now that I might have done a great many things,” said Mr Norrell. “I might have answered the York Learned Society more gently – although they are no such thing and were very rude to me. I might have taken Mr Segundus as a pupil - he is a tolerable magician after all despite his infinite questioning. Perhaps I should have gone into Faerie when I was thirteen. But I did nothing and that was what displeased him I think; the task that John Uskglass set me – if indeed he is even aware that I exist – was simply to do something. Well, I have had my sign from him at last.”

“John Uskglass has spoken to you? That is why you changed your mind and allowed the school?” said Childermass, sitting straight up.

“In a manner of speaking; for some weeks I have been puzzled by a new question – why were you so much in my mind, quite unbidden I might add, when your physical presence and in particular your conversation was so disagreeable to me? Why, for instance, did I once dream of us performing magic together? At last I became convinced that you were the sign for whose coming I had so long despaired; hence, my proposal that we marry and work together.

“You refused me in the most ungentlemanly of terms; after further pondering I concluded that the baffling misery I felt at this rejection could only be a form of punishment from a third party – your own person not being dear enough to me for your rejection to spark such a sentiment of course. I therefore determined to seek pardon by allowing the school, without participating in it myself, although I was sure that the many blunders that you and your friends would fall into in the course of running it would be a daily torment.”

“You imagined that John Uskglass wished us to be married?” said Childermass. “Well, it is as well that you were wrong – being a match made by a king would put a burden on any new couple. But why does this mean that you must go into Faerie alone and never return? It seems unfair.”

“Of course it is not fair – it is magic. Tonight you were taken whilst in the very act of coming to Hurtfew to accept the school; and the only means by which you could be saved was to place myself in the hands of Faerie. I have concluded that my fault was not in fact my forbidding of the Heartsease Academy. I had already committed it when I refused to give you hope by confessing that I was a practical magician; when I spoke against the Raven King.

“It was not therefore enough that I should see magic taught and most likely restored to England by other hands; my foolishness must be censured further. Well, punishment is a kind of acknowledgement I suppose. I have had my answer from the Raven King and it is to follow him out of England.”

“Believe me, Mr Norrell, I have no wish to tell you that you are not a fool,” said Childermass who had listened very carefully. “But there is a great deal more to this story that is foolish. Suppose that Mr Honeyfoot had not sought you as a husband for Mr Segundus – an act that he meant only to do good by? Suppose that I had taken my money to The Golden Fleece instead of paying for Mr Segundus’s new suit? We will never know if anyone meant this all to be or if we muddled through it ourselves. For myself, I do not think that John Uskglass writes romances.

“But let us take one thing and believe that; you should have done something rather than sit in a library for twenty years. The question is - what shall we do now? So; let us go into Faerie together on Thursday – we shall ride Brewer, it will not scare him -and leave the school to Mr Segundus and Mr Honeyfoot.”

“Together? Well, you will need someone to protect you there. But will you not miss your friends and the school? And will not the fairy be angry?”

“Who is to say that we shall not speak to our friends again? As for this Neighbour, I pride myself that I have annoyed every gentleman in Yorkshire; let me have a new challenge. He will be expecting but one poor Christian to trudge across his bridge. What will he think when a magician and his apprentice gallop over it together?”

“My apprentice?”

“Yes, Mr Norrell; I think that I have shewn you enough devotion to magic to be granted that. You have discovered that I have attempted candle magic and had some small successes. I also made a pack of cards which...” He felt in his pockets and drew them out. “These were scattered around my dying body when I last saw them,” he remarked. “Well, someone wanted them saved.”

“I never thought to have an apprentice,” said Mr Norrell. “Very well; but you must be a good obedient pupil and listen and never argue. Oh! And you may explain to me whatever it is you know about candles and so on; I dare say that it is a kind of folk magic but I shall not despise it much for that. Of course I shall learn it very quickly.”

 “I never thought to have an apprentice myself,” said Childermass. “Well, I shall promise to be as good a pupil and teacher to you as you are to me.” He laughed and drained his glass. “Now – stop frowning and write another letter to Mr Segundus about the school but tell him everything about where we are going this time. There is no danger that he will be able to follow us?”

“No; the bridge will disappear as soon as we have crossed it and in his present state of magical knowledge he will not be able to restore it. I shall urge him to wait for us to speak to him from Faerie. He is too handsome to deal with fairies directly – they would carry him off in an instant.”

“But you do not fear such a fate for either of us, Mr Norrell?” said Childermass with a smile as he took up a pen and paper himself.

“Oh no; we are both far too ill favoured. What are you writing?”

“A letter to Mr Honeyfoot setting out Mr Lascelles’s crimes of last night and urging him to warn whoever he may seek to despoil next. Let me tell you his whole history first.”

Here Childermass gave Mr Norrell a swift but complete account of Messrs Lascelles and Drawlight’s misdeeds, including the efforts of his friends to save Mr Norrell from their machinations, his own meeting with them in York three days ago (with very brief details of their conversation) and the full story of the highwaymen’s attack.

“Marry me indeed,” said Mr Norrell at the end. “I thought that he wanted to steal Brewer from you.” And that was his only comment or thanks for his friends’ efforts.

“It would help if Mr Honeyfoot knew how to find the man; you said that you used a spell of location to discover me on the moor. Could we see where he has gone using the same magic?”

Mr Norrell agreed that they could; he had a jug of water and his silver bowl brought into the sitting room directly, together with another bottle of brandy.

The bowl was set up; Childermass leaned so close to it in fascination that his breath ruffled the surface into waves.

Mr Norrell raised his hand and hesitated: “It cannot be done?” said Childermass anxiously.

“No,” said the other, blushing. “It is simply that I have never been observed at this before.” But Childermass’s gaze was evidently an encouragement rather than a distraction; he quickly drew the quarters on the surface of the water and said “Earth – England – Yorkshire – Country - House – Room; Childermass, he is in the West attic of Hurtfew!”

“I had thought that the man would have fled by now,” said Childermass. “Evidently he means to slip away under cover of night. Is the other one with him?”

Mr Norrell swiftly repeated the spell naming Christopher Drawlight and confirmed that he was.

“Shall I have the footmen hold them and send for a magistrate?” he said.

“I should like to go and deal with the man myself; but my leg will not allow it today. And he will have some tale to tell the justices about you being a spurned suitor and myself being a thief. Neither of us will be here to testify against him; Mr Segundus and Mr Honeyfoot are too goodhearted to be a match for him; and I do not suppose that the highwaymen will give evidence. Miss Norton might speak up but Sir Robert will hush her for fear of scandal.”

“So he will escape any punishment?”

“In this world, yes.” Childermass tapped his pen against his teeth. “How goes your letter?”

“There is a great deal more to cover than I realised; I fear that I shall be continually thinking of some warning or advice that I should have given Mr Segundus when we are in Faerie. And I should very much like to see the school. But what help is there for it? The toll must be paid. Who else could we send?”

Childermass pointed with his pen to the bluish light still flickering in the bowl which served to represent Mr Lascelles and raised his eyebrows.

“We might still go together to Faerie but later,” he said. “And in the meantime – well, the toll would be paid and the bridge closed. And I do not suppose that Lascelles would find the Other Lands so pleasant a place to be a guest as he has Yorkshire. As for Drawlight, he can run away. You may think it too harsh a punishment for him to suffer Mr Norrell, he being one of your own class but ...”

“No – I am not concerned with his suffering,” said Mr Norrell shortly. “I suppose that if the Cinque Dragownes still sat at Newcastle some would say that I should be before them but then again I might shew a thousand examples of magicians who have dealt with their enemies more harshly. And really he was a most disagreeable guest. **”**

“Then the question is how shall we manage it? I surmise that we cannot march him across at sword point,” said Childermass. “Will these lights show if they attempt to leave Hurtfew?”

Mr Norrell said that he was correct on both points.

“Then we shall be ready for them,” said Childermass. “Put that letter down, Mr Norrell and write as I dictate.”

Mr Lascelles and Mr Drawlight’s emotions on hearing the hubbub of Childermass’s rescue can well be imagined. They would both have fled the Abbey at once had they been able to reach the stables; but fearing that their villainy was even now being revealed to Mr Norrell they had remained in the attics unnoticed by the servants and in deep discussion of the various events that had led them to this pass; Mr Lascelles in particular railing at Oliver and Nicks.

Drawlight was sent out to survey the field at six; it seemed that they might now leave the house as no one was searching for them. They slipped out by a side door – Mr Drawlight in his time having made an expert survey of all such exits – and walked over the lawn at a brisk pace. Then they were stopt by a voice.

It was their host, standing on the Abbey steps – a little dishevelled and weary and nervous but with no footmen at his side to apprehend them. In his hand was a letter with his own seal

He was sorry to request a favour, said Mr Norrell but he required that a message be carried at once to his near neighbour – a gentleman who lived across the old bridge over the River Hurt in the garden – the old bridge and not the new. This gentleman was very particular – he would only receive correspondence by hand and from another person of rank. Could Mr Norrell trouble Mr Lascelles, who had performed so many favours for him in recent days, to walk over the bridge – it must be the old bridge, there was a servant there who would direct him - and deliver his letter immediately?

Of course, said Mr Lascelles, bowing and taking the missive, he would be happy to oblige in such a trifling matter. Mr Norrell hurried back into the house.

“Childermass cannot have told him anything – I assume that he will now try to extort money from us; we may still win the day,” said Mr Lascelles, having recovered from his surprise. “Here,” – he thrust the letter at Mr Drawlight – “you take this; I have more important things to do than play post boy. When you return, we shall take a coach to York and have an explanation from the highwaymen, the villains!” Like many great rogues, Mr Lascelles was never more outraged than when he presumed that he had been cheated himself.

Mr Drawlight did as he was told; he was in any case glad to calm his nerves by having some innocent little errand to run. He walked to the riverbank; the old servant rose from the bench for a moment – saw letter with Mr Norrell’s seal on it - and waved him on with a nod.

The only garden with which Mr Drawlight was familiar was Vauxhall; he was therefore unconcerned that there were now two bridges over the river. He accepted the old serving man’s reassurances that the second would bear his weight even though it appeared more reflection than stone in the evening light.

“It is a very pretty effect however it is done,” he said to himself as he stept upon it. “I may have a use for it at Lady Bessborough’s winter soiree when I return to London. How my footsteps echo and how silent the birds are! I hope that this neighbour will be agreeable,” – his hand trembled a little – “but people in general are always so pleased to see me!”

He walked on to the far side and disappeared into the shadows. The servant waited for a moment until he saw that only one bridge was now reflected in the Hurt. Then he went back to the Abbey kitchens.

Mr Lascelles meanwhile waited near the stables; when Mr Drawlight did not return within half an hour he went to find him. Only one new bridge spanned the river; Mr Lascelles was at once suspicious and determined to flee.

“Childermass has betrayed me and Drawlight has either fallen into some trap meant for myself or run away like a coward,” he said aloud. “Well, he was useful at best and often a bore.”

Some part of him wished to burst into the house and demand that Childermass fight him. He acknowledged to himself however that fear would prevent that; not the bodily fear of being killed but the fear that Childermass would murder his pride by defeating him, wounded as he was. Now he was seized by the thought that everything would be well could he but get back to Town – York, Bath, London - some place where there were parties and lights and gossip. He went back to the stables.

The bluish lights had disappeared from the water when Lascelles and Drawlight had left the house; Childermass waited as patiently as he could for Mr Norrell to recast the magic. His new master acceded to his request that he be allowed to attempt a portion of the spell, given that he had some familiarity with magical methods. After a time, he was able, with Mr Norrell guiding his hand, to draw the golden quarters on the surface of the bowl.

“You smile,” he said to Mr Norrell at his side. “I suppose that my efforts are comical to a gentleman magician.”

“Not in the least; it is merely that I have never seen magic performed by another before,” said Mr Norrell. “How strange your face appears!”

He continued the spell. One of the gentlemen was found in Faerie; but imagine the two magicians’ surprise when they realised that he was Drawlight! Lascelles meanwhile was discovered already some miles away.

“What shall we do?” said Mr Norrell, wringing his hands and looking to Childermass.

“Nothing,” said Childermass at last. “We have paid the toll and closed the bridge; Drawlight was the lesser in villainy and I should have been content to let him flee but I do not have the heart to mourn him. As for Lascelles, we shall see where he is tomorrow.”

Mr Norrell had the bowl and water removed – it was a sign of his extraordinary agitation that they had been brought out of the library at all.

“Rest now,” said Childermass. “We have done more than a day’s work. Only one final matter remains. Some days ago you made a proposal of marriage to me Mr Norrell; I am now minded to accept it. Good night.”

“But you refused the offer, Childermass,” said Mr Norrell in astonishment. “You said that there were no terms on which we could be married.”

“But you did not withdraw it, sir. As for the terms, I have changed my mind as they have changed. You brought me home; you are stuck with me now.”

 “But you said that you would never want to be married because the Raven King wished it.”

“And what has this to do with him, Mr Norrell? Now, eat and sleep a little; Mr Segundus and Mr Honeyfoot will be here for breakfast I am sure and then we shall have all the explaining to do over again.”

Mr Norrell, seeing the sense in this, left the room. He returned a little later washed and shaved to find that Childermass had ordered food and drink from Lucas by the simple method of bellowing for it; but he was too weary to eat and fell asleep in an armchair directly. Childermass meanwhile munched on a great deal of bread and cheese and watched him as he slept.

 

_Mr Lascelles now departs from this history; but the reader may wish to know his ultimate fate. He first stole a horse from the stables and rode away on it. However, the horse took as unreasonable a dislike to Mr Lascelles as every other living creature at Hurtfew, threw him off almost immediately and returned to its stall. He continued on foot to York, having no other choice. This brought him to the small grove of trees where Samuel Nicks and Jack Oliver were waiting to receive the final third of the rent money that Mr Lascelles had abstracted from Farmer Yoward._

_Mr Lascelles was unable to pay them; he remembered then that he had for some time made Christopher Drawlight carry all of their funds because the purse that held them had spoiled the line of Mr Lascelles’s buckskin breeches. The consequence of that was that when Mr Drawlight went into Faerie he took all of the money with him. Mr Lascelles was not embarrassed in the slightest by this: indeed he vigorously upbraided Oliver and Nicks for their failure and declared that it was now their duty to escort him to York. He would not have paid them any more money had he been able._

_The highwaymen however had come to the limits of their good nature and they were not as patient as Mr Lascelles’s previous debtors. They undertook to carry Mr Lascelles away but not to York; and in a manner that would allow them to recover their funds. The consequence of that was that when_ The Ralph Stokesey _sailed from Hull to the Arctic in search of whales on the following morning she took with her a new sailor. The captain was very pleased to have so sturdy a crewman and declared that he would be worth every guinea paid for him once he had given up his drunken ravings of being a gentleman and reconciled himself to his new station in life._

 

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

Mr Honeyfoot and Mr Segundus came to breakfast the next morning, just as Childermass had declared that they would, both very anxious for news of their friend. Once reassured by his devouring of a plate of mutton chops and a flagon of ale, they removed with their host to the library; all parties (The York Magicians and the Hurtfew Magicians) being in agreement that there was a great deal to discover and discuss between them.

What revelations followed can easily be imagined by the reader. The first and greatest was Mr Norrell’s announcement of himself as a practical magician. Mr Honeyfoot was moved to happy tears, Mr Segundus almost to swooning. Mr Norrell had shied a little at such a confession when Childermass had first proposed it; but his new advisor had quickly convinced him that he must at last reveal what Mr Segundus’s own shrewd brain now surely suspected.

Indeed, Mr Segundus had come to Hurtfew with many questions as to how his friend’s rescue had been accomplished, as he was now quite certain that the search parties had not helped the matter in the least; and only his native politeness had prevented him from bursting out with them over the breakfast tea cups.

The news of the fairy, his kingdoms and his bridge brought yet more exclamations. Mr Honeyfoot could not be done with apologising – to think of the hard words that he and his fellow scholars had used on Mr Norrell when he had first prevented the school at Heartsease! Had they only realised that it was his tender consideration for their own wellbeing that had led him to forbid the scheme! And what magnanimity and courage to then allow it although he himself would play no part! And to be prepared to sit and suffer their own inferior efforts at magic while all the time knowing that he was the heir to Martin Pale and Ralph Stokesey!

Mr Segundus had nodded very politely when his friend began these perorations. But as Mr Honeyfoot’s praise of his host grew and grew he himself turned frowning and anxious.

For his part, Mr Norrell would have been very content to pace about the library and listen to his guest speak in this manner for the rest of the morning. However, Childermass broke in from the corner where he was sitting with his leg on a stool and smiled:

“You may say what you are thinking, Mr Segundus. He banned you from establishing the school before ever he knew that it was to be at Heartsease - out of miserly pride and tyranny. He always feared another magician in England, however much he denies it now.”

Mr Norrell might have protested at this (all the more for it being true) and the meeting turned sour. But Mr Segundus immediately rose with a bow and said to him:

“There is one matter where I must apologise to you, sir; when we first met at the York Assembly Rooms it was not by chance. My friends, through the best of motives, were attempting to unite us – I fear that our efforts (which I should not have been drawn into – the fault is mine entirely) gave an opportunity to Mr Lascelles. Please forgive me for the ungentlemanliness of my behaviour, particularly my visiting you here at Hurtfew alone; which I think may have given you hopes of my sentiments towards you which I already knew were false. I pray however that we may now be friends and magicians together.” Mr Honeyfoot seconded him with vigorous agreement.

Mr Norrell had never judged Mr Segundus to be a jilt; still, for a moment, he was tempted to grow indignant. But the other apologising so handsomely drew any sting; he contented himself with saying that he would never have married him anyway and sulking a little when Childermass grinned. Then he bowed to the company after a minute or so’s silence and tranquillity was restored.

Mention of Mr Lascelles prompted Childermass to give a full account of the murderous assault on him two evenings before. The visitors immediately asked to where the villains had fled. Answering that question allowed Mr Norrell to give a demonstration of practical magic with his silver bowl and a jug of water. He discovered in the process that although his hands were steady throughout, his ideal audience for magic was one - and that that One was Childermass.

Mr Lascelles, to their surprise, was headed for arctic waters and not for London – and he would remain there for many months, said Childermass who had some familiarity with the whaling trade. Mr Drawlight was still resident in Faerie; both of the Hurtfew party were very pleased to explain the business of the toll across the bridge and of how it seemed that Mr Lascelles had condemned his friend in his place.

Mr Honeyfoot was at once reminded of a story that his mother had told him of a similar bridge near Hartlepool. Mr Segundus, however, lept to his feet in agitation.

“You see no objection to this?” he said.

“What? Fairies are not Methodists, Mr Segundus, they will not care that he has no Christian soul worth saving.”

“No, Childermass – it is that the two of you have sent a man to the Other Lands entirely unprepared and by a trick.”

“You are very tender-hearted towards one who paid to have me killed, and who plotted against your own wellbeing.”

“I have not forgotten his crimes. But we stand on the threshold of the Restoration of English Magic. Shall future historians say that its founder’s first act was to use his thamaturgical knowledge to privately punish another Christian whatever his sins?”

“Why should any scholar know of it?” said Mr Norrell but a glance at the other’s pale face and firm jaw told him from whom the revelation would come.

Mr Segundus was the moral lodestar of his friends; so Mr Honeyfoot and Childermass did not pooh-pooh his comments as overdelicate but instead turned to thinking of how they might soothe his worries and assure him that Christopher Drawlight’s fate was perhaps not so terrible as he feared or at least more deserved. Mr Norrell, having reflected that such refinement of feeling would in time have become a burden in a husband, said aloud:

“A vision spell will not work in Fairie: but you may go to the site of the bridge and faint there if you are so eager to see the criminal again. Oh, as if you did not mean to use him thus at Heartsease, Childermass,” he added, when the latter made mention of possible danger.

Mr Segundus accordingly walked down to The Hurt with the rest of the party and halted at the very spot upon which he had swooned in July. He fainted once more; when he opened his eyes, it was midnight and Christopher Drawlight regarded him with a smile.

“Are you well, sir?” Mr Segundus asked him for want of anything better.

“I am Master of all ceremonies and dances, so busy that I am transformed to bones and moonlight, sir,” said the other, and pointed. Through his fingers, John Segundus saw a large mansion filled with candles and music standing on the bank of the river. Another gentleman came out of the house at that moment and joined them.

“He is comely,” he remarked, peering down at Mr Segundus through a quizzing glass, “but his heart will never be as hard and brilliant as yours, my darling; it is the finest jewel in all of my three kingdoms.” Christopher Drawlight laughed and touched his breast where a great diamond was pinned, although whether to his fine clothes or to his person his visitor could not tell.

“Come, return with me,” said the second gentleman, playing with the locks of his companion’s dark hair. “You know that the party is perpetual here.” And the two of them strolled back towards the mansion arm in arm with many loving embraces.

Mr Segundus was again laid out on the sitting room sofa to recover; when he revived he related his vision and asked what it might mean.

“We have sent Fairie the one Christian who might flourish there, I think,” said Childermass and Mr Norrell and the rest could only agree.

Having settled the question of Mr Drawlight as well as they were able, the gentlemen returned to the library to discuss the academy at Heartsease. Mr Norrell promised that his library and patronage would be freely given and said that Mr Honeyfoot should write again to his potential pupils and scholars with the news. Might Childermass assist him with the letters when he was recovered, asked Mr Honeyfoot?

Alas, said Childermass, he would have all his time taken up with an apprentice of his own whom he feared would be troublesome and hard to instruct.

“As if you will be any easier!” exclaimed Mr Norrell. So the visitors discovered that their hosts were to teach each other. They at once asked, delighted, what magic Childermass had to share.

“Magic was my earliest love, the thing in the world that concerned me most. You gentlemen will all understand my meaning. I learned first from the wisdom of old women and the songs of children; though I was not a child for long. I had no books but I played the Yorkshire Game and I felt the lack of an answer from John Uskglass as keenly as any boy with a library to read, I think,” he told them.

“I discovered what I could from the cracks and shadows in the world – how to make a candle burn blue from a street magician who did not understand his own trick; how to read secrets in a pack of cards from a sailor in Whitby who could not master them himself. At twenty, I became an usher in a school to learn Latin; then I quarrelled with the master over his mistreatment of his pupils and was turned out.”

“Then Childermass, you were a magician all along,” said Mr Segundus. “Why did you not tell us?”

“Yes, why? I am sure that you would be quick to condemn another for the same hypocrisy,” said Mr Norrell with a sniff.

“In that case, I would not be the only magician who lies. But it was only candles, cards and shadows; it would not call a king back.”

“I surmise that it was enough to scare a poet, though?” said Mr Segundus, smiling.

“There is something else that I must confess – Mr Norrell knows of it already. This is not my first apprenticeship. My previous master was a highwayman, Samuel Nicks, the very same who would have hanged me. Once I had been dismissed as an usher, I could not be too particular as to how I fed myself. I am not ashamed that I was poor but I am that I was a brute. Still, I can boast that I failed at that too in the end. I discovered that while I hated mankind in general, I could not hate many men in particular. What you threaten in taverns at night when you are drunk and warm is not what you do on a cold night when the pistol is in your hand; although it is for some.”

“I will judge no man, least of all you John, for a struggle that I have not fought myself,” said Mr Segundus, to Mr Honeyfoot’s agreement.

“For myself, I do not care,” said Mr Norrell with a shrug. “You should care,” said Childermass quietly, taking his arm for a moment and speaking in his ear.

“I do not regret it entirely,” he continued to the company, “for it taught me how to face gentlemen down. That brought me to the York Society where I hoped to continue my learning of magic; but was disappointed, as were we all. But now we shall all see and do enough magic to choke us.”

“All four of us here?” said Mr Honeyfoot.

“Yes; and all the scholars and students of Heartsease too, as a beginning. We shall all rise like boats on a general tide.”

That was enough revelation for a single day: as for the other matters and promises that Mr Norrell and Childermass had spoken of the evening before, there was an understanding between them that these should be their own business entirely.

Mr Norrell escorted his visitors to the Abbey door – a much happier leave taking than their last. On returning to the library he found Childermass at the little desk which had once been meant for Mr Segundus, shuffling and ordering a great pile of papers and objects before him.

“Here is every letter sent to you by your attorney since June,” he said. “Lucas found them piled up under Drawlight’s bed and gave them to me.”

“And the rest?” said Mr Norrell seating himself in the armchair by the fire (for there was only one).

“Several teaspoons – a little silver statue of Hermes – the menus for the dinner that you gave in June - things that he thought worth hoarding it seems. I have never seen such a pile of trash and treasure. You should send for Robinson regarding the correspondence; I can make sense of most but he must advise you where the delay in matters has been severe. You have also missed several book sales.”

“Very well; I doubt that the mischief is great. I was not so foolish as to trust Lascelles entirely.”

“Given the villainy that he drew you into, you might wish to be thought a fool,” said Childermass, scrawling a great list of instructions on one of the documents.

“Well at least they did not almost hang me,” continued Mr Norrell, perhaps a little put out by some of Childermass’s raillery that day. “As for the book sales, I recall that you once boasted that you could acquire any volume for me.” He gave a dry little chuckle. “You spoke so mysteriously of your powersand all that it was, was thievery. I dare say that you will not object to some more thieving if they have found their way into the wrong libraries.”

“I did not steal books,” said Childermass, with some asperity. “The volumes that I presented to the Society were mine. They were lost in the earth - they wanted to be found – and they called to me. I sought them out by candle and card and I rescued them as they wished. Do not call me a thief of Magic.”

There was a silence of a number of minutes during which only the crackling of the fire and the scratching of the pen made any noise.

“I am sorry, Childermass,” said Mr Norrell at last in a small, low voice. “I shall be glad if you will find books for the both of us now.” The other only grunted and wrote faster. After a few minutes he put down the pen. “That is enough for tonight.”

“Mr Segundus was very sharp about our paying of the toll,” ventured Mr Norrell.

“He is a good man; he will also be a practical magician like us before long and the two elements will be an interesting combination.”

“Yes, we shall how being _good_ serves him with fairies.”

Childermass leant back in his chair. “Tomorrow I shall see what my cards say as to buried treasure, then when my leg is healed entirely I shall take Brewer out on a hunt. There are pistols in the house that I may borrow?”

“What happened to your own?”

“I sold them for a few shillings, having lost all my money on the school. Nicks and Oliver should not have overpowered me otherwise.”

“Yes, yes Childermass you have told me the story already: do not become tedious. Do you want the money repaid?”

“What good would that do? I needed it a month ago.”

“Then shall I buy you a new set of pistols?”

“Your steward will have an old pair that will do just as well.”

“Oh! Then what do you wish?”

Childermass only smiled. “Do not pity me – I do not pity myself. It was not the first time that poverty almost hanged me; when I was ten I was a pickpocket. One day I took a lady’s purse and ran away into an old cellar nearby to see what I had won. But as I counted the coins, I all at once saw that there was a man in the shadows watching me.”

“Was he pale, with long black hair and seated on a chair?” said Mr Norrell in great excitement.

“No: a very modern gentleman with gold spectacles and a good suit. He must have known what I was about. But instead of taking my arm and calling the constable he smiled and told me to be more careful of being observed at my business. Then he walked away. I have never understood why.”

“Most strange: and was that when you resolved to become a highwayman?”

“No, that was when I was twenty and by chance. I had lost my ushership and with it all the books in the school library: it had a copy of _A Child’s History of the Raven King_ that I read until the pages fell out. The only magical library that I knew of was Mr Norrell’s at Hurtfew. Accordingly, I walked the fourteen miles from York intending to ask your steward for a position as footman. I meant to serve you by day and to study secretly in your library by night. But at the wall I hesitated – who was I to work in such a great house – I should not understand the books anyway – and so I turned away. A mile along the road, with holes in my shoes and bleeding feet, I met Sam Nicks riding a horse in fine fashion. I told him either to take me as his apprentice or to shoot me, as that would save me the trouble of hanging myself. That recommended me to him and I rode with him and with Jack Oliver accordingly.”

“A footman? I should have dismissed you within a week for insolence!”

“No: I should have been a very quiet, obedient shadow; you should never have known what was truly in my heart. That makes me thankful that I walked away. If I had come in, then we should only ever have known each other as Master and Servant. Now we shall know each other entirely: and whatever my actions, you may say to yourself, ‘ _He has done this for me not because he was commanded but from his own free will_ ’.”

“And the books that you found – did you read them?” said Mr Norrell after a pause.

“Yes – in barns and taverns and under hedges in the rain. A highwayman’s life is not conducive to study. And all the time the trees and moors were whispering to me. I turned from one to the other and understood neither.”

“Well of course. You were attempting to read a library through the keyhole in its door so to speak. Now I shall teach you and I have no doubt that you will master magic: in so far as any man can, you shall.”

“But suppose that I cannot?”

“You _shall_.”

Childermass limped over to the fireplace. “The school will be opened soon: you are reconciled to seeing other practical magicians?”

“You have persuaded me that a general revival is to come. Magic will rise, John Uskglass may return and we may be forgotten. But for a time there will only be the two of us, only two who can call ourselves practical magicians, only two of us who _know_. I have known for so long alone. I am glad that it is almost over.”

Childermass knelt by his side with a little difficulty and took his hand. “You asked for what I wished; I shall be very obliged for a second armchair to be brought in. But for tonight, will you read to me?”

Mr Norrell hurried to the bookshelves, where selecting an appropriate volume was not easy. At last he took down the first of the small notebooks near his desk.

“You shall see here my own difficulties in learning magic and that will encourage you in your studies,” he said, returning to his seat where the other still knelt.

“Thank you, Gil,” said Childermass. They linked their hands again and read on, holding the book between them, until the candles in the library guttered and left them in the dark; and they read no further ** _._**

There now began a period of visitation the like of which Hurtfew Abbey had never seen. Mr Segundus and Mr Honeyfoot invaded the library daily to make lists of magical volumes and to draw up a curriculum for Heartsease. Mr Norrell who was unaccustomed to hearing any other voice there or seeing another hand laid on his books suffered agonies but did not break his promise to support the school.

After a few days Mr Segundus asked Childermass if he wished to return home with them to York. Childermass thanked him but said that he intended to remain at Hurtfew: the truth was that Brewer was so settled in the stables there that he did not have the heart to remove him.

“Settled!” said Mr Norrell. “He quarrels all day with the donkey that lives there and makes it constantly bray.”

“Braying is all it is,” said Childermass. “You know that they sleep very happily together in the same stall at night.”

Some might have concluded from this that the two Hurtfew magicians were on as bad terms as they ever had been. Mr Segundus however observed Mr Norrell to sit down without a glance behind him and hold out a hand, certain that Childermass would supply the chair and the book that he needed without prompting. He saw that the dark eyes of the younger man never left the face of the older when he was talking; how the latter now had the habit of glancing at his apprentice after any pronouncement and the swift nod that followed. His own tender heart made Mr Segundus very soft to the emotions of others; and he concluded that Mr Norrell’s allowing of the school had had another inspiration: and that any hopes that had accompanied that action were now satisfied.

The other notable visitor was Mr Robinson who came and complimented Childermass’s review of Mr Norrell’s correspondence. Childermass himself was away from the house on some business at Heartsease, and only returned in time to bow to the attorney as he left.

“That was Robinson, the lawyer?” he said, coming into the library.

“Yes, what of it?” said Mr Norrell.

“He is the very image of the man I told you of who did not have me arrested for thieving as a boy – even to the spectacles. But that was twenty years ago; why would he do such a thing and how has he not aged?”

“He is the image of his father; I recall that when Robinson senior died and Robinson junior first called upon my Uncle Haythornthwaite we did not realise the difference for several visits. His mother was an Otherlander so he was often on the estate visiting relations.”

This was a puzzle: there was no reasonable explanation for these facts and, Mr Robinson being as magical as a Spinning Jenny, it seemed that there was no unreasonable one either. Childermass contented himself with a private resolution to introduce the lawyer to Mr Segundus at some convenient moment.

Builders were now engaged to revive the old house at Heartsease, Childermass managing the particulars. The Master Builder came to him three days later: the plans that Mr Childermass had given them shewed ten rooms but his men had counted thirteen at dusk. They settled on their being eleven and the work always ceasing at night. The garden was left untouched by design; and Mr Yoward’s sheep grazed on undisturbed for the moment.

It was not to be expected that such a momentous development as a School of Magic in England could be overlooked by its neighbours. Mr Segundus hastened the process of discovery by magically cleaning the laundry of his landlady Mrs Pleasance and her neighbours to thank her for her many kindnesses to him (and all without the aid of fairies) - his thamaturgical development being swift if sometimes erratic. The matter was soon the gossip of every housewife in York.

This led to a confession in front of the whole York Learned Society and an eager delegation of the latter being sent to visit Hurtfew with Dr Foxcastle at their head. Mr Norrell, with many a glance at Childermass, admitted to them the truth of his being a practical magician and gave some small demonstration by bringing to life the porcelain figure of Martin Pale that stood by his desk so that it bowed and greeted the company, albeit in the accent and manner of a modern gentleman.

Dr Foxcastle was so happy to see magic done by a fellow yorkshireman that he bore with Childermass leaning against one of the library’s pillars and shook Mr Norrell’s hand so hard that both of their wigs fell askew. “We stand ready to advise you, sir; such an enterprise will attract every charlatan and jackanapes in the county. We must have only gentlemen of sound ideas, who know who their great-grandfathers were.” Here he looked to the pillar.

However, it was now Childermass’s happy duty to inform him that the academy was not to be restricted to gentlemen.

This was a blow to Dr Foxcastle. But when he further understood that it was not to be restricted to men at all, he burst out laughing.

“You may as well teach magic to a horse as to a woman sir,” he exclaimed and bent over Mr Norrell’s silver basin to examine it.

Just at that moment, all the water in the bowl rose up in the miniature form of the she-demon Alrinach and flung itself into Dr Foxcastle’s face.

That gentleman left at once, declaring from underneath a wet wig that he would not stay in a house where disrespectable magic was performed, and took his supporters with him.

“Childermass, that was not gentlemanly,” said Mr Norrell when the library was quiet again.

“You need not compliment me, sir,” said Childermass.

That was the last time that the Learned Society of York Magicians concerned themselves as a body with Heartsease; but Mr Honeyfoot promised to speak to several of the members privately – Mr Thorpe and Mr Greyshippe for instance - and to invite them to view the academy.

 These invitations would be delayed for it was now the time appointed for the marriage of Miss Honeyfoot to Miss Norton. The night before the ceremony, Mrs Honeyfoot and her three daughters sat before the fire talking and sewing the flowers for the veil. All seemed very happy until Miss Jane of a sudden burst into tears.

“Why, what is the matter?” said Isabella.

“It has just come upon me,” sobbed Jane. “We three shall never be seated here with mama just as sisters again.”

“Jane, you goose, you have known that for a year,” said the other. “This morning you were dancing for joy to have a bedroom to yourself at last.” But then she put her arms about her sister’s neck and drew her down and whispered:

“We shall always be sisters wherever we are; and one day when we are all very old we shall sit here by the fire again and make bonnets and mama and papa shall watch us from Heaven.”

Mrs Honeyfoot and Eliza joined them in the tearful embrace. This, then, was the scene that greeted Mr Honeyfoot and Mr Segundus when they returned from the Old Starre Inn, both gentlemen standing bewildered until they were noticed.

“Papa it is because we are so happy,” said Miss Eliza.

Mr Norrell did not attend the wedding as Miss Norton had expected. However it was much commented on by his neighbours that Childermass was sent in his carriage to make his apologies.

There is enough gossip about them now to satisfy even Mr Drawlight were he still with us; that Mr Norrell is seen without his wig in public; that he rides in a carriage with Childermass by his side on Brewer to the woods above Heartsease; that the two of them read books there in the green shade; that Mr Norrell has picnicked there also, sitting on the grass to drink tea while Childermass eats bread and chicken; that they are never parted: all of which would seem to be too vulgar and fantastical to be true

Mr Segundus has been asked to say plainly if they are married; being a gentleman he does not reply. However he reminds his listeners of the old custom whereby those who do not want to bother the parson are said to have been married by The Raven. Some persons who are too concerned with their neighbour’s business have spoken to Mr Robinson but Mr Norrell’s attorney remains happily unconcerned by the matter.

Mr Norrell finds ladies more agreeable now that he has met several who are to join the academy and talked of magic with them in the dry and learned manner that pleases him (whether it pleased the ladies is another matter). Childermass, having reminded him that his previous opinion was that female magicians were mythological, has been told that there must always be exceptions to a rule: Catherine of Winchester was the only woman amongst the Aureates. All seven of them cannot be Catherine of Winchester, sir, says Childermass.

There are other visitors to whom Mr Norrell is not so reconciled; a vulgar street conjuror has made his way up from London somehow to sing ballads of John Uskglass in the gardens of Hurtfew at night; and to steal pies from the kitchen which he eats in the library while thumbing the books (when he is not discovered and shooed out): he has no great opinion of Mr Norrell either.

A number of earnest men from the labouring classes have come and spoken to Childermass in low but urgent voices of the return of The Raven King. They call themselves Johannites and the government is much interested in them. Childermass and Mr Honeyfoot have been obliged to consider whether any of their new pupils and scholars are government spies; this led to some embarrassment when they challenged a young magician from Shropshire who seemed too perfect the society ideal of the fashionable conjuror to be sincere (they were forgiven however and the young man flourishes at his studies. He may one day be the third magician in the land or perhaps the fourth if Mr Segundus allows himself to be counted.)

Mr Honeyfoot meanwhile is kept very busy with the letters that come from every corner of Yorkshire and beyond, asking for magical advice or reporting some new instance of an old saying revealing itself to be a spell, when it is uttered and a neighbour dances a jig or a bird speaks for a moment.

As for the government, Mr Norrell has received several flattering communications from them inviting him to the Admiralty or to meet with Lord Wellington. But his only reply is; “I shall stay in my King’s country; they may come to Yorkshire if they wish and I shall consider their requests.” Childermass has advised him on the point and Childermass’s advice is always good. Indeed the servants at Hurtfew already cannot remember a time when he did not order all the business in the house.

Mr Segundus meanwhile, improves in his thamaturgical abilities daily. Despite Mr Norrell’s cautions he is always ready to do the numerous little favours that a practical magician can for his neighbours of all ranks of Society. He is known as the Kindly Magician and The Poor Man’s Friend and the Honeyfoot family are convinced that they shall dance at his wedding to one of a number of ardent new admirers before Christmas.

It seems that Mr Norrell’s Neighbour over the bridge is distracted at present by his new companion, none of the scholars at Heartsease having been carried off in a dream. Perhaps, says Mr Honeyfoot, he does not care for the London Magician smoking a pipe in his gardens. No matter if he returns, says Childermass, who is now drawing up plans for the excavation of the stones of the old bridge over the Hurt and their restoration. When Mr Norrell blanches, he reminds him that he has a pack of magicians at his back, that there is now no burden that he must bear alone. Mr Norrell is content to let Childermass be brave for him.

As to the question that commenced this history, the Author will leave the reader to decide whether A Magician Should Marry but hopes that in this particular case the uniting of the _Wild_ and the _Respectable_ whether they be Magic or Persons has pleased the Reader.

 

 

 

 

 

 


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